sherwindu wrote:
....
The reason I think the power failure did me in was the circumstance that the stove
ignitor worked for several years without a problem, up to and immediately before
the power outage, and then failed immediately afterwards. Too much of a
coincidence.

Coincidence isn't necessarily causation and as others noted, given the
nature of the beast, isn't at all straightforward to show that there
would be any direct impact expected. Frustrating, undoubtedly, but
unless they just happen to feel generous on the day they receive the
complaint unless you have something more solid to go on I wouldn't get
my hopes up...
...
As I mentioned, my immediate neighbor hood (about 1 block radius) has had a long
history of these power outages, more than one would expect from natural causes.
The power company probably has old equipment and doesn't want to spend the
money to upgrade. I consider this negligence, so their using this as a
justification that there was none, doesn't have any merit. ....

An area of only that size w/ any history different from any other of a
similar size on a statistical basis would be difficult to fathom other
than from some very isolated transmission system fault/cause. If you
were to actually get the data for the outages and look at them over a
period of time for correlation to weather, etc., and could show a high
outage rate, that would probably have some bearing. Some utilities I
have worked with would have such data readily available, but probably
not at such a fine level of detail so to show anything factual would
probably require you keeping records yourself for a while.

It can't be negligence unless they're aware of it, and given the volume
and area they cover, a few extra calls to a given neighborhood are
highly unlikely to raise any flags. As for merit on the specific
claim, that was previously mentioned. As for a willingful neglect or
conscious decision to not, I suspect again that the impugning of motive
is, while comforting, much more an emotional reaction than anything
that could be substantiated. In an ideal world, all problems would be
solved before the occur and nothing would fail, but in reality,
undoubtedly there are service areas suffering far more severe and
frequent outages than your neighborhood and are higher up on the list
of areas needing/receiving service upgrades.

A neighborhood into which I moved back in TN initially had a high
outage rate owing to rapid growth in the area and long, old lines
alongside an access road which went a long a creek bottom. Trees were
a problem as was an undersized substation for the increased load. Took
a few years, but they utility company did get the new substation in and
new lines up. It wasn't neglect that took that long, the plans had
been in place for quite some time, but resources aren't infinite.