Dark days in Harford

There's a good chance that some people reading this are doing so without the aid of an electric light, at least in their homes.

The reason is one we're all familiar with, the remnants of Hurricane Irene ripped through the area over the weekend, knocking out power to about 75,000 electric customers in Harford County.

By Thursday morning, there were about 5,400 BGE customers still without electric power, and for some the lights weren't expected to be back on until this weekend.

It was a bad storm, and it knocked out power from South Carolina to Vermont and beyond, so it wouldn't necessarily be fair to single out BGE for criticism of its ability to restore electric power.

On the other hand, though Delmarva Power, which serves a portion of northern Harford County and is the main electric company serving Cecil County just to the east, had fewer than 130 Harford customers without electricity and about 120 in Cecil in the same state by midweek.

Maybe Delmarva just got lucky, but more likely BGE wasn't as prepared as it could have been. It's not the first time in recent years there has been reason to be critical of BGE's power-restoration abilities, and unfortunately, it probably won't be the last. On the other hand, if it wasn't BGE or the weather, we would be complaining about something else.