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Montgomery Co. Executive Pens Letter Asking For Answers From Pepco

July 30, 2010
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By Jonathan Wilson

In Maryland, Montgomery County's chief executive says he wants to know why Pepco's response to the widespread outages caused by last weekend's storm took so long.

In a letter to Pepco's CEO, Montgomery County executive Ike Leggett says there's "little acceptable explanation" as to why it took until Tuesday, two days after the storm, before Pepco was able to bring in sufficient numbers of outside contractors to help with power restoration.

"You did not have outages up and down the East Coast. Therefore the assets of all of those neighboring jurisdictions, from Virginia, all the way to New York, were readily available," he says.

Leggett wants to review all of Pepco's emergency response practices.

He says he'll create a citizen work group to explore options for improving what he calls the "poor service" after the storm.

Pepco is holding a 4 p.m. news conference on Friday at its headquarters to address some of the questions raised in Leggett's letter.

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