Eversource sets new deadline for western Conn.

With a few hundred customers still without power Wednesday, Eversource crews are working to restore outages from Tropical Storm Isaias.

Eversource said Wednesday afternoon that the remaining power outages would be restored “in the hardest-hit western portion of the state” by midnight Thursday.

As of 7:25 p.m., the utility company reported 259 outages remaining, representing 0.02 percent of its 1.3 million customers. On Tuesday night at midnight, Eversource successfully met its self-declared deadline to restore power to all but at most 1 percent of customers.

United Illuminating reported 232 customers without power around 7:25 p.m. Wednesday, up from the just 49 UI customers still without power earlier in the day. That increase to 232 included 190 in West Haven and 28 in New Haven.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton posted on Facebook Wednesday, “Eversource doing a victory lap this morning is laughable. It’s like setting fire to a barn, waiting 8 days to put the ashes out and then saying ‘Look at me! Look how great I am.’ Some advice: Get the lights on, reimburse people for lost perishables, reimburse businesses for lost revenue, do not tack on the repair bill to future bills, speaking of bills, drop the new charges that have caused bills to skyrocket, cap CEO and executive compensation, then we can talk. Since you won’t do those things, we need to break up a monopoly that doesn’t work. Let’s never forget.”

Attorney General William Tong late Wednesday called for Eversource to reimburse customers for the cost of lost food and medicine — a move Consolidated Edison is doing in New York. Tong said he had not calculated the estimated value of the reimbursement.

More broadly, Tong and other elected officials — including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a former longtime state attorney general — have called on Eversource to agree to pay for the entire cost of the cleanup. Blumenthal also called for rebates to customers that lost power. Eversource did not respond to Blumenthal’s demands.

Tong said he intends to argue before regulators at upcoming hearings on the storm, and at future electric rate hearings, that Eversource shareholders, not ratepayers, should shoulder the restoration cost — which has not been estimated publicly.

“It’s probably more than the $40 million they paid their executives last year,” Tong said, referring to the publicly listed pay of the top five executives.”