The Green Island Power Authority responded to my questions. All of them.

Last Saturday, the Town and Village of Green Island was plunged into darkness as a power outage struck the area. And while the neighboring towns of Cohoes and Waterford had their power restored reasonably soon, it wasn’t until nearly 4:00 in the morning when Green Islanders received their repaired electricity. 

GIPA had a planned Town Board meeting last night, and I called the Village offices to find out if I could attend the meeting and ask questions. ”I’ll put you in touch with someone from GIPA,” she said to me, “and they’ll answer all your questions.”

Okay. Believe me, I have plenty of questions. 

Later that afternoon, a representative from GIPA – Kristen – called me. 

And sure enough, she answered all my questions. And at my request, she explained the answers to someone who didn’t have an electrical engineering degree.

Q – Aren’t Green Island residents getting their municipal power from the hydroelectric generators from the old Ford radiator plant?

A: No. Those generator wouldn’t be able to power the entire Town and Village, and it would take several millions of dollars to wire everyone up to those hydro-electric generators.

Q – But I’m getting cheap municipal power here. It’s not coming from National Grid. Where’s it coming from?

A: We are one of over 30 cities and towns in New York who actually get their power from the hydroelectric generators at Niagara Falls. That energy comes directly from the New York Power Authority. Other municipalities who benefit from this power program include Jamestown, Massena and Lake Placid. So Green Island is getting hydro-electric municipal power, it’s just coming from the Niagara River and not the Hudson River.

Q – What happened Saturday with the power?

A: There was a power outage, yes. But when National Grid began to repair the power lines, they have to check all the connections, what they call “walking the line” to make sure there are no other problems. And that’s when they found that the transmission center in Maplewood – which is the conduit toward Green Island – had a transmission pole whose wires had burned through the pole. They couldn’t turn the power back on until that pole was repaired. And – that pole is actually on private land, with a fence and chains around the property. And – the pole itself was in a swampy area of the property. Workers had to actually contact the property owners to get access to the land; and then had to pour silt to build a temporary road to even reach the pole. 

And none of that could be done without specific contractors. And because of the storm in Western New York, most of the contractors were stationed in that area. The closest contractor that could come out to inspect the damage and direct repairs was stationed in Rochester. If we couldn’t get him, the next closest contractor that wasn’t stationed in Western New York would have been from New Hampshire. 

This is why, when there’s an upcoming storm, you’ll see electric bucket-trucks parked in shopping centers as station areas. They’re stationed to be ready to solve critical emergencies and be there at the most likely place for those emergencies.

And one more thing. The contractors and the repairmen were working under extremely dangerous conditions – which danger was magnified by the upcoming storm and rain. They did an incredible job to get the power back on, and we really owe them a debt of gratitude for all they did that night.

Q – I thought that all of Green Island was on the same power grid. Yet I was able to get some food and a haircut at the shops at Starbuck Island, which I understood was part of Green Island. 

A: Starbuck Island’s power comes from Troy, and they’re serviced by National Grid.

Q – I lost some perishables in the blackout; and I had to get a motel room for the night. Is there any way I could submit for reimbursements?

A: Unfortunately, no. I will say that we did offer an emergency charging and warming center at the Community Center on George Street, and people did take advantage of this by having their phones charged there. Some people even brought over their refrigerated medicines to keep them cold.

Q – So what we really had was a combination of worst-case scenarios that just compounded one on top of the other. 

A: Yes. But it does allow us to understand what we need to do in the future in case a similar circumstance happens in the future.  

Q – I had also heard an urban legend that because of the municipal power in Green Island, that solar-powered homes are not permitted within city limits.

A: That’s not true. Any homeowner can add solar panels to their home if they so choose. The only thing they can’t do is sell the excess power from that solar energy to National Grid. 

Q – And there’s no possibility that National Grid could come in one day and say, “We’re now taking over all your town’s electric requirements, you will now know the pain of triple-digit electricity bills.”

A: That won’t happen either. National Grid is prohibited from offering electric power to residents in Green Island, with the exception of some of the businesses on the North side of the Island, and to the newly-built Starbuck Island apartments. 

—

Well then. This really did answer a lot of my questions. Much thanks to Kristin and the Green Island Power Authority for clearing up as much about what happened that night. 

And really … this helps me understand what happened on Saturday, why the repairs took so long, and the fact that the repairs held up once a quick and sudden snow squall roared through the Town and Village on Sunday afternoon. Geez. Imagine having a power outage with a snow squall bearing down. Not fun.