Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 23:50:09 -0500
From: Chris Garriss
Subject: Duke Power
Has anyone noticed differences in response times since Duke acquired Progress Energy?
I live in one of the semi-rural parts of the county: Moncure. In the time since Duke has taken over it has taken 4-5 hours to 24+ hours to get power restored – residentially that is, the corporate entities around here are back up in minutes to a few hours. I can sit here in the dark and see their lights and hear the activity.
One of the people I talked to – working on power lines – told me that Duke had “scaled back” employee line crews and gone to more contract services to “reduce & control costs”. Employee crews are more expensive than contracted services. “Although response times might be longer, it will keep rates lower in the long run.”
It seems to me that since the acquisition rates / proposed rates have escalated and response degraded.
I’ll head back outside to watch the twinkling of the lights at the plants & houses near them while I sit here in the dark for another (estimated) 20 hours. Of course, the current estimate is the 3rd one, each moving further into the future. (The power is on on my road about 3/4 mile from me. One can hope that the power will be back on by the scheduled time or earlier…although that would be novel since the merger.)