Senate committee hears residents’ complaints, AT&T and Entergy on repeated Tarrytown outages; PSC outlines reliability rules

Senators brought constituents’ complaints about repeated, unexplained power outages in the Tarrytown neighborhood and asked AT&T, Entergy and the Public Service Commission (PSC) to explain causes and remediation plans.

Senator Connick showed photographs and a community petition documenting outages, lost food and damaged appliances. Matt Adams, representing AT&T, told the committee AT&T is not responsible for power outages and said that communications lines attached to poles in the railroad corridor are not the cause of power loss. Adams said AT&T wants to repair deteriorated poles but has been unable to reach reasonable access terms with the railroad’s right‑of‑way agent (identified in testimony as Rail Praxis LLC). He told senators that the railroad’s proposed fees (flagging, application, per‑linear‑foot and per‑crossing charges) can total hundreds of thousands of dollars and have delayed work.

Entergy representatives (Jody Montalaro and Joe Book) acknowledged reliability problems in 2024–25 and described a corrective program: detailed inspections, 57 identified projects, 20 pole replacements, roughly 175 circuit miles of vegetation trimming and deployment of distribution technologies (trip savers/reclosers, animal mitigation). Entergy said vegetation and equipment failures were leading causes and that after a recent deep‑trim cycle outages in the immediate area had stopped. Joe Book said equipment failures produced two large breaker events in 2024 that caused the biggest customer impacts, while vegetation caused numerous smaller outages.

PSC staff and Commissioner Davonte Lewis described commission work to track reliability at the distribution level (ZIP code or census tract) in addition to system averages, to standardize outage classification, to require five‑year resiliency plans and to explore customer credits if non‑weather outages exceed reliability standards. Commissioner Lewis said the commission is pursuing rules to address pole‑attachment coordination problems and is seeking more granular reliability metrics so local neighborhoods with repeated outages are visible in regulatory oversight.

Senators pressed Entergy on when funding for resilience projects will arrive; Entergy said several federal and FEMA/grant awards totaling to millions were applied for (numbers cited for parish projects) but funds had not been received at the time of testimony. Committee members asked for monthly updates and district‑level project lists. The committee did not take formal action; members commended officials for responsiveness and urged prompt fixes.