Dan Eichhorn, President and COO, PSEG Long Island
At PSEG Long Island, we are relentless in improving and updating our plans to respond to emergency situations. When a storm like the one that hit our service area on April 13 brings down trees and power lines, our crews suit up, leave their families and work in potentially hazardous conditions until everyone’s service is restored.
In other words, our employees are essential workers providing an essential service. That’s why, even amid emergency orders restricting many people from working outside their homes, you may still see PSEG Long Island employees doing their jobs in your neighborhoods.
Storm response is not the only essential work we do. To ensure an outstanding level of electric reliability for our customers, we must constantly inspect, maintain and upgrade the electric infrastructure. Just as an example: Well before that April 13 storm, we stepped up our inspections and maintenance of crucial transmission and distribution lines that serve our hospitals to protect our health workers from any interruptions during their lifesaving work. And we continue to storm-harden the electrical circuits that serve our homes and neighborhoods, improvements that reduce storm-related outages by 45%. In this time of uncertainty, we all know how essential it is to have reliable electric service in our homes.
While we perform this essential work, the safety of our employees and customers remains PSEG Long Island’s top priority. We have procedures in place to ensure our employees and third-party contractors follow federal and state guidelines governing safe work practices to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
These measures include observing safe social distancing while work is carried out, limiting the size of crews, placing strict limits on the sharing of equipment, tools and machinery, and implementing stringent hygiene and sanitization procedures. We are providing all employees with face coverings and gloves, and have separated our workforce into smaller teams and also established a number of remote reporting locations to reduce the number of employees who are together in one place.
In addition, we have suspended all nonessential work in customers’ homes, and we are only entering customer premises for service emergencies or essential repairs. When it is necessary to enter a customer’s home or business, we work under screening protocols that carefully assess the risk so that our employee can use the precise personal protective equipment needed to do the work safely.
You can help, too. We ask customers and members of the public to remain a safe distance from any of our crews you may encounter so that they do their essential work safely. We appreciate your support as we work to make Long Island and the Rockaways an even better place to live and work.
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