Even as RG&E and NYSEG agreed Thursday to pay $3.9 million for a botched response to the March 2017 windstorm, the two utilities were accused Thursday of fumbling again in 2018.

New York's utilities failed to follow their own emergency response plans after major power outages from storms in the late winter and spring of 2018, a state Public Service Commission investigation concluded Thursday.

The commission ordered six of the utilities, including Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., or RG&E, to respond to its investigative findings.

The investigation singled out New York State Electric and Gas Corp., or NYSEG, for particular criticism.

The report said Binghamton-based NYSEG's response to a pair of fierce March snowstorms had been "inadequate" and that it neither restored electric service quickly enough nor communicated publicly in a timely and accurate fashion about its restoration work.

The company's poor performance was most notable in the part of its service territory that includes Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

In light of NYSEG's repeated failures, the commission said it would take the rare step of seeking a court order to force the company to improve.

Largest sum ever paid by a utility

NYSEG and RG&E are sister companies, both operating under the Avangrid name and owned by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola SA.

The third electric utility that serves western and central New York, National Grid, was among the companies ordered to respond to the PSC investigation. The others cited were Central Hudson Gas & Electric, Orange and Rockland Utilities and Consolidated Edison.

RG&E and NYSEG declined to comment on the ongoing 2018 probe but said they were pleased the settlement of the 2017 outage-response investigation has been approved by the commission. The companies' president, Carl Taylor, said in a prepared statement that they "look forward to continuing to build a more resilient energy infrastructure that serves New York state."

The $3.9 million, the largest sum ever paid by a utility for failing to follow its emergency response plan, will go to infrastructure enhancements. The money must come from company profits, not ratepayers.

What happened in 2018?

It was a tough stretch of weather: Five major storms hit the state from early March through mid-May.

A March 2 snow- and windstorm knocked out power to nearly 500,000 customers, with the lower Hudson Valley the worst-hit. Five days later, another snowstorm led to outages affecting 162,000 customers, many of them in the same areas hit by the first storm.

Power wasn't fully restored until March 10. Complaints from customers about slow response led Gov. Andrew Cuomo to order a PSC investigation.

Two strong windstorms hit that spring. An April 4 event brought gusts as high as 70 mph in Rochester and left 126,000 customers in the dark, most of them in the Buffalo-Rochester region.

Then a May 4 windstorm hit the North Country hardest and took 160,000 customers offline, and a series of thunderstorms plus a tornado knocked out 188,000 Hudson Valley customers on May 15.

The governor expanded the PSC inquiry to cover the response to those outages as well.

The investigation is one of several ordered in recent years by state officials who have been pressing New York's seven major electric utilities to better prepare for powerful storms and big outages.

Climate change, which is thought to be causing more frequent and powerful storms, is an underlying driver of the state's push.

How'd the utilities do in 2018?

Not all that well, according to the 171-page PSC investigative report released Thursday. All the utilities save the one on Long Island came in for some degree of criticism, though NYSEG may have gotten the worst of it.

The PSC report said the company failed to assess damage property, in part because they didn’t send enough people into the field, a shortcoming that caused the company to provide tardy or inaccurate estimates to customers of when their power would be restored.

After its poor 2017 storm response, NYSEG had told state regulators it contracted with extra damage assessors. But when the 2018 storms stuck, the report said, it was learned no such contractors had been executed.

The report also said NYSEG failed to deploy enough people to guard downed power lines, allowed its brand-new outage management computer system to overload and crash during the storm, and didn’t send out enough news releases to keep the public informed.

RG&E was criticized much less than its sister company in the report, though the commission said it also had issues with its outage management system, deployment of wire guards and training damage assessors.

So what happens now?

The report identified 43 instances in which the utilities may not have followed their emergency response plans and made 94 recommendations for remedial action.

The commission commenced an enforcement proceeding and ordered the utilities to respond to the report within 30 days. Financial penalties are possible, though it's likely the utilities would seek settlements with the commission first.

Singling out NYSEG again for what the PSC sees as its repeated failures, the commission directed its general counsel to seek an injunction in state Supreme Court that would order NYSEG to make improvements in its emergency response capabilities. The PSC has taken such a step only a few times previously.

If a court order were issued and NYSEG failed to abide by it, the company could be subject to legal sanctions and financial penalties.

What about the 2017 case?

NYSEG and especially RG&E were accused by Gov. Cuomo and the PSC of bungling their response to power outages caused by a pair of windstorms in March 2017.

The worst of the storms, on March 8, featured winds that gusted up to 81 mph. Six people were killed, $110 million in damage was done and power was lost by 170,000 customers of the two companies.

From 2017:D&C exclusive: Was Rochester Gas and Electric prepared for the windstorms?

The commission found a host of shortcomings — slow damage assessment, inadequate restoration-time estimates, insufficient communication with customers on electric-powered life support equipment, aged and brittle utility poles. The companies agreed to improve storm response, and said they would pay $3.9 million to settle the matter.

That agreement was formally adopted Thursday.

In their statement Friday, RG&E and NYSEG said they have been installing utility poles that are more resilient, secured new equipment to detect outages at critical facilities like hospitals, implemented a text-based system to communicate with customers on life support and have purchased a mobile command center that will led outage managers work "in the heart of affected areas."

SORR@Gannett.com