Havre de Grace residents say BGE power outages are a citywide problem

A Havre de Grace resident told city leaders Monday that power outages have become so routine in his neighborhood that many of his neighbors have given up waiting for a fix and bought their own generators.

What’s happening: Chip Place, who chairs the building and grounds committee at the Bulle Rock community, spoke during public comment at the October 19 Havre de Grace City Council meeting, which was held at Bulle Rock. He said power reliability problems come up every single month at committee meetings and asked whether the mayor or council had talked to Baltimore Gas and Electric about what he called a citywide issue.

“Every month on our agenda is BGE and, you know, we have fairly frequent power issues with BGE,” Place said. “It had gotten better for a while but then, you know, a couple of Sundays ago we lost power for two and a half hours right at the start of the Ravens game, by the way.”

What he said: Place said the problem is not limited to Bulle Rock. He told the council that residents at Scenic Manor, another community in the area, deal with the same thing.

“There doesn’t seem to be any long-term solution to this,” he said. “Many residents here at Bulle Rock have their own generators because the power is so unreliable.”

Place did not hold back in describing how serious he believes the situation is. “This is not really — this is kind of a third world country situation when you’re dealing with the power supply here, which it should not be,” he said.

What we know: The city has gone to BGE before. Representatives from the utility have come out and spoken with residents. BGE previously blamed the outages on osprey — large birds of prey common near the Chesapeake Bay — interfering with power lines or equipment. No permanent fix has been put in place.

What’s next: It is not known whether the city plans to contact BGE following Place’s comments. BGE has not publicly addressed the ongoing reliability concerns in Bulle Rock or Scenic Manor.