Dear Editor:
On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy drove the Hudson River into Hoboken streets flooding the PATH, PSEG electrical substations and presumably Verizon electrical equipment. Since that time despite the fact that Verizon repair crews have fanned out around the City attempting to repair telephone equipment many customers with copper wire rather than FIOS remain without service a month after the disaster. After being promised that service would be restored no later than November 10th, 22nd and the last time by midnight on Sunday, November 25th my wife and I and along with 1,500 additional customers still do not have telephone service at our home on Bloomfield Street.
Each time Verizon’s excuse for missing the various deadlines was that the equipment, a cable bundling 1500 customers including us was damaged more than was at first thought to be the case. Even though we were last promised that the service would be repaired by Sunday since it was not in fact fixed I again called Verizon to find out why its promise to restore service had not been kept again. I spoke to Kelly 155151, the only identification provided because personnel of Verizon are unwilling to provide last names to bona fide customers whose full names they have. After once again advising that Verizon had missed the last promised deadline she revealed for the first time that service could not be restored for us among 1,500 customers with copper wire service for months more because Verizon had run out of copper wire, that’s right had run out of copper wire.
It seemed that Governor Cuomo’s disbelief recently express regarding the Long Island Power Authority’s running out of wooden poles on which electrical wire is strung being an obstacle to restoring power to many LIPA customers whom lost power from Hurricane Sandy was repeating itself in Hoboken with regard to Verizon’s reason why telephone service had not been restored for many customers in Hoboken. After finding Verizon’s latest reason for its failure to restore service incredible and unacceptable a formal complaint against Verizon was filed with the NJ Public Service Commission. At this time Verizon, which was contacted by the NJPSC regarding our complaint, has not taken any steps to restore I service. Apparently, a public utility like Verizon has inadequate contingency plans to deal with the circumstances like the effects of Sandy
Richard M. Weinstein. Esq.