The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
4+ days in, nearly 300K still without power
Utilities: Power will be restored as early as weekend, no later than Tuesday
Hundreds of thousands of people remained without power Saturday in Connecticut as the slow recovery from Tropical Storm Isaias continued.
As of 5 p.m., Eversource reported that about 241,006 households, or roughly 19 percent of its customer base in the state, were without power.
That included about 2,164 customers in Cheshire; 3,060 in Guilford; 2,534 in Madison; 4,530 in Norwalk; 1,848 in Seymour; 3,225 in Stamford; and 7,505 in Westport, which represents 59.4 percent of the customers in town.
As of 5:30 p.m., United Illuminating reported that around 18,292 households, or about 5.5 percent of its customers in the state, were still without power.
That included 995 customers in New
Haven; 1,565 in Bridgeport; 1,384 in Milford; 1,371 in Woodbridge; 406 in East Haven; 439 in West Haven; and 1,669 in Easton, roughly 57 percent of UI’s customers in town.
On Friday, the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down briefly in Westport during the storm.
The NWS said the storm on Tuesday produced a waterspout, which made landfall as an EF1
tornado around 1:40 p.m.
In Bethel, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker called on Eversource to provide a single “make safe” crew to help clear town roads, saying the community was “approaching a crisis” due to its inaction.
As of around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, 3,587 Eversource customers remained without power in Bethel.
“(W)e have had over a dozen key roads remain closed since the storm due to trees and wires hanging or on the road (our DPW crews very quickly cleared every road blockage where no wires were involved by Wednesday morning),” Knickerbocker wrote in an email to the utility company Friday. “We have multiple critical facilities still running on generators, and now we are having trouble getting the fuel trucks in to keep them running.”
Knickerbocker also wrote to the office of Gov.
Ned Lamont Thursday night, arguing that Eversource had inappropriately focused on restoring power to a limited number of customers.
“While I can only speculate, it would seem quite transparent that prioritizing ‘easy’ restoration over ‘make safe’ operations makes the outage numbers appear to be improving faster. But this was undertaken at the expense of public safety,” said Knickerbocker.
Harwinton First Selectman Michael Criss said on Facebook that some residents, “based on the lackluster performance of Eversource and false information,” should “please be prepared to be out until Thursday this week” and to be “patient as we fight for you with them.”
“The crews working for Eversource are not the issue, so please respect them and stay clear if you see them working as they are working long days and hard in the field, it is the bureaucracy within Eversource creating the long delays and problems with the restoration efforts,” said Criss.
On Thursday night, the state’s two largest utility companies said residents could see their power restored as early as this weekend, and no later than Tuesday.
Eversource said it expects to make “significant progress” by the end of the weekend, with most of its restoration efforts “substantially complete” by midnight Tuesday. Fewer than 1 percent of customers may be without power for longer, they said.
In an email obtained by
Hearst Connecticut Media on Thursday, United Illuminated representatives told state officials that they expect most customers to have power back by midnight Saturday. At latest, they wrote in the email, all customers should have power back by midnight Monday.
“We understand it may not be welcome news that some customers may still be without service this weekend,” said a statement from Tony Marone, UI president and CEO. “We ask customers to plan accordingly.”