Howard County business owner wants more done with vegetation by power lines

A Howard County business owner claims trees and vegetation make power outages a more frequent problem than they should be, after tens of thousands of Marylanders lost power in the past week.

The number of people impacted by power outages reached six figures at its worst. But as of Wednesday night, BGE restored power to more than 85,000 customers.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, Maryland's power outages map shows that 2,028 statewide are experiencing an outage.

Anthony DiGangi, one of the owners of Walker's Tap & Table and Rosie's Delicatessen, said he's communicated issues to BGE for years, pushing for better vegetation management around power lines around the businesses.

A BGE spokesman said the utility company welcomes collaboration with home and business owners alike to do what they can to prevent issues like power outages.

Problem with outages

Diners got to enjoy lunch inside Walker's Tap & Table for the first time Thursday since the Fourth of July, when the restaurant lost power.

The power came back Wednesday, but not before all of the restaurant's perishable food spoiled. The same happened for the food stored at Rosie's Delicatessen.

Anthony DiGangi is one of the owners of both businesses.

"People who were off for the holiday, they volunteered and came in [to try and save the food]. We loaded a truck up with as much food as we could," DiGangi said. "Devastating thing for both businesses, also for the community, there were a lot of homeowners without power."

When it storms as it has been, DiGangi said he and others in the area just wait for a power outage to happen, usually because trees and other vegetation often fall on the lines.

"Whenever the wind picks up around here, everyone's kind of walking on eggshells. The entire community," DiGangi said.

DiGangi said the power lines in the immediate area often have overgrown trees and vegetation near them, which he believes has increased the likelihood of a serious, prolonged outage. He added that his businesses and neighbors in the area have had an active history of outages over the years.

How BGE manages vegetation

BGE describes its vegetation management as a multi-pronged approach, as 40-to-50% of all power outages are caused by trees and vegetation in major storms.

Nick Alexopulos, senior manager of communications for BGE, said it's always a priority where to place tree crews when planning for a storm -- trying to predict where tree damage will be to have people at the ready to clean the mess up.

BGE also does routine tree trimming, having a system to identify what trees are high-risk.

Alexopulos said a big part of the strategy is making the electrical system resilient. 

He said there has been automated equipment installed that helps prevent millions of sustained outages per year. In the recent round of storms, according to Alexopulos, around 240,000 outages were prevented because of this equipment.

Working with the community is also a big part of it. Alexopulos said people can report overgrown vegetation or any other power line issues they see, even if it's not their property.

"We're talking about 9,000 pole miles that we have to maintain. You can't have people on 9,000 pole miles at all times," he said.

DiGangi said because he's been communicating his concerns with BGE over the years, he has a direct contact with the company. He wants to solve the issue not just for his businesses, but also for his neighbors.

"There has to be a solution for redundancy, or another way so that the community doesn't lose food. There are elderly people without power and that's a problem," he said.

Since Saturday night, BGE's care center has received more than 125,000 phone calls from customers.