BALTIMORE -
The chairman of Maryland's Public Utilities Commission refused Thursday to "grade" the utility companies' response to last Friday's storm.
About half of all Maryland households in the Washington and Baltimore area lost power immediately after a line of thunderstorms roared through the Free State. It has taken days to restore service to hundreds of thousands of households and businesses.
Douglas Nazarian told reporters at PUC headquarters in Baltimore that the agency he heads would wait until the companies have finished restoration efforts and had a chance to submit what's called a "major storm report" to the regulatory body. Those documents will likely come in later this month. Only then, said Nazarian, would the PUC comment on how well or how poorly the companies did.
Asked how much would it cost to bury all overhead power lines, the PUC Chairman cited a study done in 2003.
"The way they [expressed] it was to say that it would cost somewhere between $340 and $415 per customer per year," explained Chairman Nazarian.
He also pointed out the report concluded it would take "15-20 years to retroactively underground the electric system in this state."
So, would Marylanders be willing to pay (at least) $30 more a month for electricity -- forever -- if the service was therefore more reliable? We went to the streets of Silver Spring and asked Pepco customers that question.
"I would be willing to do it just to keep these inconveniences to a minimum," declared Nicole Johnson of Gaithersburg.
Sabaina Flowers, of Wheaton, who is disabled and uses an electric vehicle for mobility, replied, "Absolutely, because you get tired of [electricity] going out every couple of weeks. And being out for … days at a time."
Asked if he would pay more forever to put electric wires underground, Kizito Fonjong, of Lanham, said, "Yes -- for security reasons."
We found only one Pepco customer who offered a more nuanced answer.
"Probably not," answered Russell Simon of Silver Spring. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't put some wires underground."
Pepco is actually doing that: identifying neighborhoods with overhead wires where outages are unusually common. If tree-trimming or other measures haven't worked, Pepco managers say they then "selectively" bury power lines.
In new developments, power lines are generally buried.
Next week, Maryland's PUC is scheduled to decide whether Pepco gets a requested $68 million rate hike.
The PUC Chairman would not say whether the company's performance in the current cleanup would impact the agency's decision on a rate hike.
Maryland Public Service Commission Chairman Doug Nazarian
