We had a power outage recently, too.  And, my electric bills both at home and at the office have gone up about 30%!!  It is very upsetting that in this economy basic services such as electricity are subject to such enormous rate increases.  In a time when many people are stuggling to get by, I don't know how they will afford this.

I have a lawyer friend that does work with the Public Utitlies Commission.  I am going to have a talk with him about how this kind of thing can happen.  In Ohio, we have an organization called the Ohio Consumers Council that ordinarily represents consumers in these kinds of rate increases, but the governor slashed their budget by more than 50%.  Needless to say, consumers are not well represented anymore.