Officials welcome agency decision faulting Eversource response

Connecticut lawmakers on Saturday said Eversource will held accountable, after a draft decision from the state’s public utility authority sharply criticized the state’s largest electrical provider for its response to Tropical Storm Isaias last August.

“This is the beginning — and only the beginning — of accountability,” state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, promised in a tweet about the draft decision.

“We empower regulatory bodies like PURA for this exact purpose: to punish public utilities for dangerous and unsafe performance,” state Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, said in a tweet. “Eversource should hear the voices of regulators, state officials, and customers and place them above their shareholders.”

Tropical Storm Isaias swept over Connecticut the afternoon of Aug. 4 last

year with rain and sustained winds that brought tornado warnings to some parts of the state. The storm uprooted and downed trees and limbs that cut power for up to 800,000 utility customers at the peak.

In the 111-page document released late Friday, the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority concluded Eversource’s preparations and response to the storm were inadequate, and said it “will consider fines and penalties” against the utility under state law.

The document does not specify how much the fines might be. Because the document was released in draft form, a spokesperson from PURA said the authority would not answer questions from reporters, but said a press conference will be held in April after the release of the final decision.

Eversource has said it stands by its response to the storm in a statement issued through a spokesman Friday evening.

“We take exception to some conclusions made in (PURA’s) draft decision today,” the company also said in a tweet. “Despite the forecast for Isaias changing drastically as the storm arrived, we were well prepared & mobilized 1000s of crews to restore power as quickly as possible, while following Covid protocols.”

Others disagreed. “Eversource seems to feel they’ve done a great job and I think they need more community interaction with directors of emergency management,” Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.

“We’re not saying drop everything else, but at least give every community a truck that they can rely on,” Marconi said.

The draft decision points to failures in the utility company’s communications systems and its “coordination and communications with towns through its liaison program.” It also highlights deficiencies in Eversource’s “Make Safe” operations, where crews of line workers shut off power to downed lines so damage can safely be cleared.

“When a road is blocked and there are trees and wires down, we can’t remove the trees until Eversource has checked and removed the lines,” New Fairfield First Selectman Patricia Del Monaco said in a phone interview.

While she said she has not yet read the full draft decision, she said it addressed the two biggest issues experienced by municipal leaders in the wake of the storm — lack of communication from Eversource, and a lack of make safe crews.

That often left local leaders in the dark — literally in the case of Newtown First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, who lost power at his home — without clear information to provide residents on where or when crews were coming to clear roads or restore power.

Rosenthal said Saturday he is “very pleased with the way PURA handled the matter and the draft opinion that they issued.”

Like the New Fairfield first selectman, Rosenthal described communication issues and a lack of make safe crews as the biggest problems in the storm’s wake. He said his office did not receive adequate communication from the power company, meaning it was impossible to tell residents when power would be restored.

A day after the storm, a nursing home in Newtown still had a tree and wires blocking the driveway, Rosenthal said. When a 911 call came in from the facility, first responders had to use all-terrain vehicles to get to the patient. In another case, a family’s dog was killed by a downed line that was still energized five days after the storm, he said.

Meanwhile, some roads remained blocked by debris while other areas of Newtown had their power restored

“So far it looks like PURA has heard the municipalities’ concerns, particularly about the Make Safe crews,” Del Monaco said. She called the draft decision “a step forward.”

The draft decision also raised lesser concerns with the response by United Illuminating. “While underwhelming in specific instances,” the document called the company’s preparation and response “markedly better than that of Eversource.”

UI said in a statement Friday night it would review the draft decision and work with the authority on improvements.

The document includes a list of 15 orders for improvements for the utilities, including an order for Eversource to stress test its outage reporting system, for both utilities to provide a make safe liason to towns, and for both to “have on hand line resources in advance of an event sufficient to provide one lineworker crew for all towns that request one.”

“It’s not over yet, we’ll have to see what kind of fines, penalties, are levied against Eversource,” he said, echoing Haskell’s statement that the public utility should be responsible to residents rather than shareholders.

“Time will certainly tell — there’s no question in terms of the language PURA used in that report,” Rosenthal added. “Doesn’t sound to me like they’re messing around.”