Correcting record on power outages

As president and CEO of United Illuminating, I’d like to correct some misrepresentations in the Feb. 28 article, “Total lack of empathy”: Complaints detail toll of CT power outages after Tropical Storm Isaias.

It’s just not true, as the article states, that any UI customer experienced “weekslong” power outages as a result of Isaias. UI restored virtually all customers within six days of the storm. (The remaining few, who had complex restoration needs, had power back two days later.) A Milford resident, who was quoted as saying she’d been 13 days without service, was in fact referring to her cable television, not electric service. And the “total lack of empathy” claim referenced in the headline stemmed from a customer complaint that did not involve UI.

In fact, we’re very sensitive to the hardships that extended power outages impose on UI customers. We are a local company and many of our own employees returned to darkened homes after long days working “storm duty” in the wake of Isaias. We take pride in the safety and reliability of UI’s distribution system, and in our highly skilled restoration teams.

That’s why we work so hard to meet the performance standards we have set with our regulators. We are currently working with the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to review our restoration performance following Isaias. We are confident that PURA will determine that UI’s response was in accord with the standards set out in our Emergency Response Plan.

We also expect that PURA will identify opportunities to improve, and we welcome them. It’s our obligation to our customers to learn from experience and continually ask how we can work better, smarter, safer and faster.