Daly said that much of the problem with LIPA’s response to Sandy was an inability to effectively gauge the damage quickly enough to hire the right number of contractors for the right amount of time. This error cause a number of major problems down the line, including last-minute contractor hires and an overwhelmed LIPA board, and only added to public perception that the utility was negligent and incompetent.

The new utility intends to come across as anything but. “You have [one of our] linemen talk about what they do every day,” Daly said. “And how dedicated these people are, and how committed. These are the people who were out there hanging those wires while their homes were flooded and their homes were destroyed during Sandy. These people really care. And so we’re going to get this 2,200-person army out there, and we have a belief that as much as we can do to make the operations outstanding as measured by all the right metrics, we’ve got to get out there and tell our story. And we’re going to do it with our own people.”

He added: “We’re going to create, as far as I’m concerned, the best utility in the country.”