Were the poor underserved?

Unless you have lived through it, it is difficult to comprehend the nightmare that thousands of working families living in western Queens had to endure during the recent blackout that kept them in the dark for more than a week.
Senior citizens trapped in stifling apartments, parents contending with hungry children and spoiled food, disabled residents unable to leave their apartments without elevators, and other extreme conditions turned portions of Queens into a disaster zone.
Clearly, negligence, inefficiency and indifference on the part of government agencies and Con Edison have played a major role in this crisis. One has to wonder, why hasn't Con Edison ever properly responded to the deficiencies in its distribution lines highlighted in Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's report in 2000? Why did the City fail to recognize the magnitude of the problem and insist instead on defending the negligent power company?
Ask the residents of the eastern section of Woodside, which is an area I represent in the State Senate, and they will tell you that throughout this crisis they have been treated as second-class citizens. During my conversations with affected residents, I could not stop wondering why a crisis affecting 100,000 people has not spurred top officials of the city and state to declare a state of emergency. I could not stop wondering - why major blackouts take longer to be fixed in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of poor and immigrants residents?
Similar to other areas affected by long-term blackouts, the residents of the portion of Woodside I represent are mainly immigrants, and low-income families, many of whom don't speak English, are afraid to seek help from the government agencies or know how to go about getting it. It is the responsibility of City and State government to reach out to people and let them know they can get the help to get through such a crisis.
When we first learned that the blackout was going to last longer than a day or two, Congressmember Crowley and I informed the City that the eastern frontier of Woodside has some of the poorest people of the affected area. When we were told that the relief sites would be centrally located in the blackout area and that this particular section of Woodside is too far on the edge, we asked that services be relocated.
When the City finally agreed, we were proven right: the site we initiated on 37th Avenue at 69th Street served almost as many meals on Sunday and Monday as all the other Queens sites combined. Nevertheless, our efforts will stop short if now that the lights are on again, we stop demanding that the power company, and the government agencies responsible, take the necessary steps to prevent this kind of catastrophic event from happening again.
I believe that the proper authorities should extend their investigations to examine potential criminal or negligent behavior responsible for the outage, and determine exactly why it took so long for Con Ed to fix it. The state and local government should also make sure that Con Edison not only brings its equipment and distribution lines in low income neighborhoods up to date, but also has a &#8220Plan B” to lessen the impact of power outages. Con Edison should not have to be reminded that lives are at stake when they ignore their responsibility.