{ warning this also might come off as a rant }

For those not familiar with who BGE is, they are Baltimore Gas and Electric.  They service large parts of the state of Maryland, in the D.C. surburbs, as well as large areas around Baltimore.

BGE found itself on the losing end of the recent ice storms (of Tuesday Feb. 13 into the morning of Wednesday Feb. 14, 2007) in the D.C./Baltimore area.  Approximately 70,000 customers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland alone.  Another 40,000 (give or take a few thousand) in Prince Georges County, Maryland.

In all, upwards of 100,000 customers without power because of downed power lines (knocked down by tree limbs laden with ice, or from people driving that ran into poles, etc.)

That's a lot of homes without power.  Lots of customers without heat in most cases (even if you had a gas or oil furnace or stove, you likely needed electricity to ignite them with, or to power the fan that forces air in the system).

Certainly given the scope of the storms, and the swath that was cut through the state it was not unexpected to have some loss of power, even to the extent and number of homes affected.  What wasn't expected though was a lack of any noticable response on Wednesday Feb. 14.  After the ice storm passed through, the temperatures were actually fairly mild later in the morning and into the afternoon.  But rather than seeing repair crews out cleaning up and getting things back online, instead we heard on the radio that the county executive for Prince Georges County was upset that BGE was saying that they wouldn't have *any* customers back online at all on Wednesday and that repairs wouldn't begin until Thursday (when, by the way, it was supposed to be colder again, with temps back in the teens).

The radio reports above were on News Radio WTOP 103.5 FM in the D.C. area.  Whether the part about BGE telling the County Executive that they wouldn't be bringing any customers back online for at least 24 hours is true or not is something that would have to be followed up by the news media.  That's not the point of my rant here.

Nope, my rant here is that I suspect it was true, and I suspect it was completely and totally politically motivated.  Why?  Well the cynic in me believes it to be the case because the County Executive who was reportedly told no work would be done for 24 hours happens to be a Democrat, in a County that is heavily Democrat leaning.  In a state that is heavily Democrat leaning.  With a governor that is the former mayor Baltimore, Maryland.  The same Governor that happened to be running for the office of Governor (or had indicated that he'd be running for same) of Maryland when still mayor of Baltimore and who also happened to sue the state and BGE over an agreement that would have permitted a large rate increase to be made effective more immediately than the smaller increase that was eventually put into effect (but put into effect in a way that basically screws both BGE and BGE's customers).

I suspect that BGE sat on their hands over the repair work, blamed it on safety concerns for their crews (though admittedly the roadways were still hard to navigate on Wednesday given the trees and limbs that were down and power lines that had been knocked down), and enjoyed the knowledge that their political foes were powerless to do a darned thing about forcing the repairs to happen any faster.  In fact, just the opposite, BGE could blame their foes and their opposition to the rate hikes for the slow response because they could argue that had the rate hike gone through as planned they would have had more personnel on hand rather than having to keep only a skeleton crew so they could control their costs and try to maintain profitability with the smaller rate hike in place.

It'll probably never be known, though I'm sure that some Democrats in the state will likely try to hold hearings and try to embarrass BGE officials, whether the response was because of political reasons, but heaven help BGE if there is a smoking gun out there to be found.  If so, the Democrats will use it to further embarrass BGE and to further deny rate hikes that just might have helped fund enough personnel to get a reasonable response to emergencies like the one just past.