Abreu questions absence of go-to policy for public notification of outages
Abreu notes outages have happened at least twice this year and asks why there isn't a go-to policy for notifying the public. Gelobter says they are exploring policies and procedures including when and how New Yorkers get notified. Abreu presses on how fast an answer will come, fearing no procedure exists if an outage happens today. Gelobter says she's personally been in contact with NYSEM about Notify NYC.
Why is it that we don't have a go-to policy around when and whether to notify the public?
Twice this year alone means we shouldn't be debating what to do in the moment.
No, I appreciate that question.
That is absolutely something that we have to explore as we're doing this root cause analysis.
So not only are we looking at technology systems, but we are looking at policies, procedures, process, and communications, and that includes...
How New Yorkers and at what time New Yorkers will get notified.
And how fast?
Are we going to get an answer to that?
Let's say an outage happens today again.
I'm afraid that there's no procedure in place on what your policy is going to be on notifying the public.
Apologies.
I don't make it to seem like the root cause analysis is a future thing.
We are in the process of working our way through all of the items.
I have personally been in contact with NYSOM around Notify NYC, figuring out what is the right process, what are the right policies, what would that message look like, et cetera.
I don't have the final conclusions, but we are in the process of working with them to identify the best way forward.
Thank you very much, and thank you, Chairs.
Thank you.
We have Councilmember Shwong, followed by Councilmember Stevens, followed by Councilmember Maloney.