Columbus-area civic leaders continue to seek answers about how AEP decided which neighborhoods to cut power to after map indicates poor ones hit hard.
Thursday about how AEP decided which neighborhoods to cut power to this week and whether appropriate steps were taken to notify customers in advance of the outages. again questioned AEP Thursday, calling for additional answers as to how the utility determines areas that will be without service, and whether AEP notified residents, governments and social service agencies prior to the shutdown.
“We asked AEP the same question because we were being asked by residents,” Crabill said. “AEP assured us that they based load shedding on circuit locations, not neighborhoods.” "We find it troubling that AEP has no issue with customer notifications when bills are due, but when customers are faced with historic heat, limited resources and great needs, there seems to be limited or no communication about planned outages that impact the health, safety and welfare of customers," the lawmakers wrote. as of Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon, about 1,400 customers in Franklin County still were without power, according to AEP outage maps.
AEP officials said they had no choice on where to cut power. Their decisions were dictated by where utility lines were most overloaded and in danger of failing, they said. "There wasn't an ability to have a heads up," Williams said in response. "This was an emergency, it's not a planned event."A Dispatch analysis of the company's shut-offs shows that while some poor neighborhoods were hit badly, so were affluent areas.