SMECO doesn't know how to count!

[Joilyn2323]

Reading the update from SMECO on the status of Ernesto's power outage, I am shocked that SMECO has know idea how many customers are without power. Smeco states that as of Sunday Morning * Number of customers affected in St. Mary's County: approximately 3,092.

Did they forget about the people on Flat Iron road, Draden Road and the Aberdeen subdivision??

Our Power went out on Friday at 1:00 pm. By sunday morning there were still trees in the middle of the road on flat Iron road, where you had to drive around them to get through. An I personally counted 8 trees either laying on the lines, or broke lines.

At 8:30 am Sunday I called SMECO again looking for a status and was told , Quote, " We had no idea that your area was had so much damage". "

It is now Monday morning, and we do have power! It came on during the night. But I still have two daughters without power. One by gate 2 and the other by webster field.

We were also called several times during the outage from SMECO, with a recording that stated " We indicate that you have power"

I am just very curious how SMECO can not know how many people are without power.

 

[dems4me]

To be honest with ya', I thought it was just a handful of people without power as of Saturday afternoon. All the local news channels were reporting people with power losses with BG&E and Pepco, I didn't hear anything about SMECO on channels 4, 5, 7 or 9 :shrug: Sorry y'all had to go through this

 

[Joilyn2323]

I was a bit disapointed with the county as well, I felt that they forgot about us, since I tried to listen to local radio broadcasts and no one even mentioned power outages.
During a storm what station is giving updates for southen MD?? Or are we the forgotten world down here. I also called Channel 7 news and informed them that SMECO did not how many customers were without power. Apparently living in Southen MD is not news worthy. But when your out of power any where else I hear it on the news!

 

[desertrat]

Reading the update from SMECO on the status of Ernesto's power outage, I am shocked that SMECO has know idea how many customers are without power. Smeco states that as of Sunday Morning * Number of customers affected in St. Mary's County: approximately 3,092.

Did they forget about the people on Flat Iron road, Draden Road and the Aberdeen subdivision??

Our Power went out on Friday at 1:00 pm. By sunday morning there were still trees in the middle of the road on flat Iron road, where you had to drive around them to get through. An I personally counted 8 trees either laying on the lines, or broke lines.

At 8:30 am Sunday I called SMECO again looking for a status and was told , Quote, " We had no idea that your area was had so much damage". "

It is now Monday morning, and we do have power! It came on during the night. But I still have two daughters without power. One by gate 2 and the other by webster field.

We were also called several times during the outage from SMECO, with a recording that stated " We indicate that you have power"

I am just very curious how SMECO can not know how many people are without power.

I'd like to know how they get the figures. Do they go by call ins alone or do they have some way of knowing which lines are operational? They didn't even come look at our area, Town Creek, until Sunday afternoon. Just a few hours later, though, the crews rolled in and had the trees off the lines and powered restored. The fire dept. had come out Friday on calls over the trees blocking the roads, but couldn't touch them since they were on power lines.
I noticed on their website the numbers in some areas kept going up and down.

 

[slaphappynmd]

At least they were over in St. Mary's somewhere, there wasn't a smeco truck to be seen in Calvert until late saturday afternoon.

 

[Mikeinsmd]

I was a bit disapointed with the county as well, I felt that they forgot about us, since I tried to listen to local radio broadcasts and no one even mentioned power outages.
During a storm what station is giving updates for southen MD?? Or are we the forgotten world down here. I also called Channel 7 news and informed them that SMECO did not how many customers were without power. Apparently living in Southen MD is not news worthy. But when your out of power any where else I hear it on the news!

It's not the county. Read this and weep.... (click)-->

 

[Joilyn2323]

We did not see one truck until Sunday afternoon. I thought SMECO left the county!. Not ONE truck!

 

[Kain99]

Power outage newbies... This was a cake walk.

 

[Tina2001aniT]

Our Power went out on Friday at 1:00 pm. By sunday morning there were still trees in the middle of the road on flat Iron road, where you had to drive around them to get through. An I personally counted 8 trees either laying on the lines, or broke lines..

Maybe instead of driving around the trees, you should have cut them up, just leaving SMECO with the actual power problem to deal with. :shrug:

It is now Monday morning, and we do have power! It came on during the night. But I still have two daughters without power. One by gate 2 and the other by webster field.

Your power came on in the middle of the night? Guess that means SOMEONE was up all night working on fixing the problem??

IMO maybe SMECO as a company needs to work out a new solution to dealing with these problems, but you have to remember that SMECO only has so many employees and so much manpower to take care of these problems. These guys have been working there arses off since Friday. These guys that were looking just as forward to there three day weekend as you were, these guys that had plans with friends and family just as well as you did. They gave up these plans, and family gatherings to get YOUR power back on, try being a little grateful to these guys instead of biatching because you had to live without power for a couple days.

 

[sunflower]

Power outage newbies... This was a cake walk.

Oh the cakes I would win..... doing the cake walk back in the day

 

[sunflower]

Maybe instead of driving around the trees, you should have cut them up, just leaving SMECO with the actual power problem to deal with. :shrug:



Your power came on in the middle of the night? Guess that means SOMEONE was up all night working on fixing the problem??

IMO maybe SMECO as a company needs to work out a new solution to dealing with these problems, but you have to remember that SMECO only has so many employees and so much manpower to take care of these problems. These guys have been working there arses off since Friday. These guys that were looking just as forward to there three day weekend as you were, these guys that had plans with friends and family just as well as you did. They gave up these plans, and family gatherings to get YOUR power back on, try being a little grateful to these guys instead of biatching because you had to live without power for a couple days.

Great post!!

 

[morganj614]

Power outage newbies... This was a cake walk.

Another tenant and I cleared the trees and yard. I still have no power and won't until the landlord hires an electrician then calls SMECO to hook us up. They turned the power on for 10 minutes last night but then we had live wires smoking on the ground. UGH!

 

[Mikeinsmd]

Maybe instead of driving around the trees, you should have cut them up, just leaving SMECO with the actual power problem to deal with. :shrug: Your power came on in the middle of the night? Guess that means SOMEONE was up all night working on fixing the problem?? IMO maybe SMECO as a company needs to work out a new solution to dealing with these problems, but you have to remember that SMECO only has so many employees and so much manpower to take care of these problems. These guys have been working there arses off since Friday. These guys that were looking just as forward to there three day weekend as you were, these guys that had plans with friends and family just as well as you did. They gave up these plans, and family gatherings to get YOUR power back on, try being a little grateful to these guys instead of biatching because you had to live without power for a couple days.

Ed Zachary!!! SMECO also brought in other power companies to assist. No one predicted we would get hit this hard. The power in southern MD is very reliable. SMECO focuses on areas that need power restored first. Sorry to say Flat Iron road is not high on the list for obvious reasons.

 

[residentofcre]

Hey... someone suggested that we call the Fire Department to clear off all the trees.... said they had to help us because then they could be able to get through...

Any thoughts?

Personally I think they have better things to do...

 

[Joilyn2323]

Yes, I can see myself...cutting up tree's that are laying on Powerlines!

I understand that, smeco was working...and their week end was ruined, but so was mine. They are making a lot of money this week end. An they deserve it, but I had to spend a lot of money to survive, and I count on my county and the eletric company to at least know what is going on and where the power outages are. Isn't that why our electric bills are so high?

 

[vraiblonde]

Current outage information is here: http://somd.com/news/headlines/articles/4365.shtml

I count on my county and the eletric company to at least know what is going on and where the power outages are.

Well...if you're one of the ones without power, wouldn't you already know?

I'm sure they don't give location information because it changes so rapidly and by the time they get the info to the media and it gets published, it's already obsolete.

 

[Merlin99]

Maybe instead of driving around the trees, you should have cut them up, just leaving SMECO with the actual power problem to deal with. :shrug:

And for those who don't wish to be electrocuted, leave them for the electric company.

 

[boojack]

Sorry A** Smeco !!!!

I feel that SMECO forgot about me & my neighborhood as well. I live in the Woodland subdivision which is off of Old Rolling Road...I am literally in between to shopping centers...Laurel Glen and First Colony and I just got power yesterday evening at 6pm. I lost power on Friday at 4:30 so I was out of power for over 48 hours and I was NOT a happy camper. I lost over $125 dollars worth of food that I had just bought the Thursday before and had to toss everything out yesterday when the power came back on. What foods I could salvage went in the freezer with bags upon BAGS of ice on top. I feel SMECO just took their time getting back to my neigborhood which has a total of 5 street and a total of 100 house. And the best part is SMECO didn't even have to cut down the trees down throughout the neighborhood....us neighbor pulled together and did it ourselves so SMECO can't use the excuse of trees needing to be removed, it was already done for them !!!!

I think that's it....I feel better now that I have vented.

 

[slaphappynmd]

Maybe instead of driving around the trees, you should have cut them up, just leaving SMECO with the actual power problem to deal with. :shrug:



Your power came on in the middle of the night? Guess that means SOMEONE was up all night working on fixing the problem??

IMO maybe SMECO as a company needs to work out a new solution to dealing with these problems, but you have to remember that SMECO only has so many employees and so much manpower to take care of these problems. These guys have been working there arses off since Friday. These guys that were looking just as forward to there three day weekend as you were, these guys that had plans with friends and family just as well as you did. They gave up these plans, and family gatherings to get YOUR power back on, try being a little grateful to these guys instead of biatching because you had to live without power for a couple days.

They did have the help of Pike and Penn was down there too, so it wasn't just smeco all alone.

 

[dck4shrt]

I feel that SMECO forgot about me & my neighborhood as well. I live in the Woodland subdivision which is off of Old Rolling Road...I am literally in between to shopping centers...Laurel Glen and First Colony and I just got power yesterday evening at 6pm. I lost power on Friday at 4:30 so I was out of power for over 48 hours and I was NOT a happy camper. I lost over $125 dollars worth of food that I had just bought the Thursday before and had to toss everything out yesterday when the power came back on. What foods I could salvage went in the freezer with bags upon BAGS of ice on top. I feel SMECO just took their time getting back to my neigborhood which has a total of 5 street and a total of 100 house. And the best part is SMECO didn't even have to cut down the trees down throughout the neighborhood....us neighbor pulled together and did it ourselves so SMECO can't use the excuse of trees needing to be removed, it was already done for them !!!!

I think that's it....I feel better now that I have vented.

I really don't get all of this complaining. I mean, these guys work pretty damn hard under some adverse conditions to make your life a little more pleasant. I know that collectively we all pay their salaries, but the only way that happens is if the electricity is on. The company (and its employees) see no benefit and gather no satisfaction from the (miniscule) suffering that you might endure from a couple of days without power. They try hard to serve us and I'm sure most of them do their best.
We live in a suburbanish area and one of the characteristics of this type of living is that there are a gazillion miles of power lines and a ton of trees. If you can't deal with the potential consequences of those facts, move to the city.

Oh, and if they had the resources on hand to restore your power within a few hours of the storm passing, your electric bill would probably be several multiples higher than it is already.

And finally, the money that you spent on replacing your food is tax deductible as an uninsurable loss so save your receipts.