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A nice mess (a weather rant)

Greetings, readers!

Many of you may be wondering where I’ve been lately.

Well, let me explain.

After spending a bit of time under the weather, metaphorically, I spent a bit more under the weather, literally!

I am one of the unfortunate thousands here in the southwestern corner of the state who lost electricity, heat, hot water, internet access, cable service—you know, all of those things that not only make life worth living but are absolute necessities for survival online—for nearly a week due to the recent snowstorms. And I can assure you, everything was actually as bad as it seemed.

A week after the storm, there were still streets in the city of Pittsburgh that had not been plowed. Many were trapped in their homes, apartment buildings or on their streets by fallen trees that prevented them from getting out for days. Right here on our street, some trees fell onto the lines, pulling them right off the poles and into a creek across the street where they stayed for four days while we were all without power and heat. As of Saturday night, more than a week after the storm hit, there were still hundreds of customers in the area with no electricity in their homes.

As if having no power to light and heat your residence wasn’t bad enough, the local utility companies were of absolutely no help in letting customers know when they might be able to either come back home or turn off the generators that were keeping them warm. For days, they claimed to be still “assessing” the situation and as such couldn’t be expected to provide any kind of guess as to when we’d all have our lives back. We, personally, left to stay with relatives after the first day and had to rely on neighbors who stayed put with a generator on their back porch to let us know when our power was back (then, of course, we received an automated call on our cell phone asking us to confirm from a mile or so away whether or not the lights had come on in our home).

And many of those who had generators providing them with some level of comfort still had no landline phone service because it is provided by the cable company and doesn’t work when there’s no electricity. Comcast, now there’s another study in incompetence. The company that wants to take over one of the original “big three” American television networks apparently doesn’t have the technology, or simply customer concern, to monitor their grid, ascertain when there is a problem, and fix it. They apparently were completely in the dark, no pun intended, about the fact that hundreds of their customers over several square miles were without service until those customers got back to their homes with power restored and discovered there was no TV, no phone service, no internet access. It took them another three days after that to fix the problem, which begs the question of what the heck they were doing for the five days before that.

So now, numerous municipalities and other entities are planning hearings, task forces, and other assorted offerings to “examine what went wrong,” “get answers” and “make better plans for the future.” And if the past is any indication, our “leaders” will appear, along with representatives of every government agency and private business responsible for the mess, do their dance, follow their script, deliver their mea culpas and excuses,  and everything will go right back to the way it’s always been.

For those who like to complain that “government” is the boogeyman and cause of every problem from the recession to solar flares, there’s plenty of blame to go around here. There are rumors that a number of the city of Pittsburgh’s public works employees called off “sick” for Superbowl Sunday, taking an unbelievably uncaring attitude toward their fellow citizens less than 48 hours after the fourth worst storm in record-keeping history hit the area and apparently needing a hefty reminder of what “public works” and “employee” actually imply.

But the saviors of conservatives, private corporations, did no better. As I’ve already stated, Comcast did an even poorer job of seeing to their responsibilities than they do under everyday circumstances. And Allegheny Power is also now a private, money-making entity whose service has taken a nosedive as its rates have soared since the uncoupling of utilities from closer regulatory scrutiny.

For those who are apparently unable to figure this out for themselves, turning everything over to someone who’s looking to make a profit off of it will not get you better service. It will get you greedy entities looking to cut corners and exploit customers at every turn to make as much money off of you while doing as little as they possibly can. This is especially easy when dealing with companies who HAVE NO COMPETITION! And again, if you can’t figure this out for yourself, or simply prefer to live in the fantasy painted for you by those benefitting from “privatization,” THERE IS NO COMPETITION! Not only do customers really have no options for the purchase of services such as utilities or, hello, health care, nor the option not to purchase them, those who are riding this self-serving wave have seen to it that regulations have been relaxed and oversight agencies have lost their teeth so that any competition that may exist can be eliminated by mergers, buy outs and takeovers. And they have done so with the support, or should we call it enabling, of Americans who apparently refuse to see what is right in front of their faces, choosing instead to buy into the illusions being supplied by those who tell them what they want to hear.

I’d like to say this can’t continue, but it will. So long as there are those desiring to believe that the fault for their lives lies with everyone but them, that they are being “victimized” and bear absolutely no responsibility for anything themselves, who long to hear from those who will come along and tell them as much then eschew reality in favor of following along with whatever else is fed to them like some mindless cult members, it will continue. And as long as the rest of us don’t stand up, speak out and fight back, nothing will change.

February 16, 2010 at 9:45 am

--Tammy Alonso

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