#Cuomo slams PSE&G, Con Ed over ‘lousy’ response to Tropical Storm Isaias

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said he launched an investigation into PSE&G and Con Edison’s “lousy” response to Tropical Storm Isaias — as more than 29,000 customers remain without power.

“Con Ed and PSE&G did a lousy job. It’s a technical term — a lousy job,” Cuomo snarked on a phone conference with reporters. “They were not prepared and they didn’t anticipate what it would take to get online quickly.”

The governor said he’s ordered the Public Service Commission to conduct an investigation.

Outage maps currently show 24,933 Con Ed and 1,686 PSE&G customers without power as mercury climbs to the upper 90s.

A heat advisory is in effect for the region until 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Saying he was “personally disappointed” with the utilities’ response to Isaias, which swept through the area on Tuesday, Cuomo also threatened that their “franchise can be revoked.”

“I’m not bluffing,” he said. “If you’re not serving the people of this state, they give you a license to provide a service. If you don’t provide the service, they will revoke the license and the license is your franchise.”

In the five boroughs, Queens is currently suffering the hardest in terms of power outages, with 5,520 customers still out. Meanwhile, 1,304 people in the Bronx, 363 in Brooklyn, 132 on Staten Island, 68 in Manhattan are still without power.

In Westchester, 17,418 are powerless.

Cuomo’s warning comes after New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams last week floated the idea of a municipal takeover of Con Ed.

Con Ed spokesman Robert McGee said the utility is “completely focused on restoring power as safely and quickly as possible to every customer.”

“After every major event we perform a thorough analysis of what can be improved and we’ll do the same following the second worst storm in the history of our service territory,” he said.

PSE&G didn’t immediately comment on Cuomo’s remarks.