Even as utilities pledge to stop cutting service to the poor during the coronavirus pandemic, some of America’s most vulnerable are falling through the cracks.
Angela Haislip begged the power company not to cut off service to her elderly mother and stepfather, both stroke victims who depend on oxygen machines and nebulizers to breathe.
On March 23, the utility sent a notice warning that service would be shut off in four days. At the couple’s mobile home, which is 14 feet by 80 feet, the lights went out at 10 a.m. last Friday. “If one person doesn’t pay, other members have to make up the difference. That’s the way rural electric co-ops work,” Martin said Tuesday. “On Friday, which was our cut-off day, we had several people cut off, but several people were not because they fulfilled the commitment or at least made some attempt to contact us.”
“It’s not atypical for co-ops not to be regulated by utilities commissions, it’s the norm,” said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog. Even now, a promise to maintain power to households behind on bills is no guarantee. Utility giant FirstEnergy Corp. haswhose power had already been cut before the pandemic without electricity this month. It has said it will restore service only if customers call and agree to pay a reconnection fee added to future bills. FirstEnergy said this was out of concern that automatically restoring power could be a fire hazard if, for example, a stove or iron was left on before the power was cut.
Is your electricity, water, gas or heating turned off or at risk of shutoff amid the coronavirus [email protected] Thursday, environmental and civil rights advocates sent a letter to North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein urging him to do so. On Friday, Stein called on unregulated utilities, including the state’s 26 co-ops, to abide the Utilities Commission’s order.
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