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O’Malley not satisfied with power restoration in Maryland
O’Malley not satisfied with power restoration in Maryland
Listen to this articleFour days after Hurricane Irene blew through Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley said there remains much work to be done to clean up in the aftermath of the storm.
“Some of those streets looked like the Jolly Green Giant came by and pushed over oak trees and hickory trees on to houses,” the governor said Wednesday during a quick briefing with reporters in Baltimore.
Some 140,000 households remained without power at about noon Wednesday.
“I think we won’t be satisfied until everyone’s turned on,” O’Malley said. “It’s been a long, long time for central Maryland.”
He did not criticize any utilities outright but pointed to different regions of the state as examples of how some areas are faring better than others. (Check out county-by-county outage figures here.)
St. Mary’s County, where the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative had restored 72 percent of outages, was hit harder than any other part of the state, O’Malley said.
“In Baltimore County (a Baltimore Gas & Electric area), they’re 65 percent restored,” he said. “I’m not sure they were hit any more severely” than St. Mary’s.
“The storm hit the BGE area harder than the Pepco area,” he added. “But it didn’t get hit any harder than the SMECO territory.”
Pepco, the governor said, performed well during Irene.
“I bet most citizens in the Pepco area are shocked they’re not still without power given their past experiences,” he said, referring to long outages during the February blizzards and last summer.
BGE has projected most customers will have their electricity back by Friday, with a few, scattered outages left until Saturday.
