Customers criticize Eversource, UI over Isaias outages
For Barbara Geddis Wooten of Wilton, a one-weekpoweroutage that followed Tropical Storm Isaias in August forced her to walk each morning to the local fire department to fetch buckets of water.
“Do you know what that’s like?” she asked state regulators Wednesday during an online public hearing before the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to solicit the views of customers of Eversource Energy and United Illuminating about the inconveniences and hardships caused by outages that extended as long as nine days.
“Our recent experience in Wilton, as you’ve heard like everyone else, was horrible, dangerous and health-threatening,” said Wooten, who relies on well water.
She said that for a weekno trucks were present and her street was blocked by trees that fell onto wires. And she lost food and refrigerated medicines valued at $1,500.
Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said the utility understands the hardships imposed on customers and municipalities. Each major storm “provides us with the invaluable opportunity to examine our emergency response processes and procedures,” he said.
Eversource and United Illuminating face fines for their response to the August storm, which caused widespread power outages and lengthy service disruptions. When it announced an investigation in August, PURA said it would look at “the clear misstep in response” to the storm andmeasures each company took in preparation and following the storm.
PURA has a separate case pending into rate increases it approved this summer for the utilities and is reconsidering after a public outcry. Regulators ordered the utilities to scale back the rate increases.
Just three other customers of Connecticut’s two dominant utilities spoke Wednesday to state regulators. Marissa Paslick Gillett, chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, said the agency has received about 1,000 written comments.
As many as 1 million customers lost power, generating strong criticism of the utilities, particularly Eversource, over accusations of a lack of preparation before the storm and poor communication. Theutilities pushed back, saying their response time to restore power was quicker than in previous storms that packed less of a punch.
The General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont enacted legislation early this month establishing performance-based rate-making for electric utilities.
To Wooten, that’s just a start. She called for three months of free electricity, revocation of rate increases, reimbursement for food and medicine and an end to the utilities status as monopolies.
“Let’s get another utility to crack the large market, please,” she said.
Jeff Becker of Easton criticized UI’s tree-trimming. Workers from the utility looked at trees two years ago to gauge their potential impact on wires, he said.
“Alot changes in twoyears. And they still haven’t taken any of the trees down,” he said. “But you’re going to use two-year-old data to do this after you didn’t trim trees for about 15 years? And we wonder why I was without power for three days. It’s pretty clear.”
“There should be fines and there must be consequences for all the failure to act,” Becker said.
Armand Perera of Avon said that if utilities return money to shareholders rather than spend more on resiliency to protect against storms then “we have a critical problem.” Eversource should provide details about howmuchitspendsontechnology for storm response, such as automatic switching and resilient substations, rather “than just cutting tree limbs.”
Melvin Garelick of Trumbull said in written comments that he and his wife, who are both 75 and have chronic medical conditions, discarded food valued at $500 and were “living on bread, peanuts, peanut butter andcereal” during the outage that lasted more than three days. Torrington resident Jacqueline Larkin wrote to PURA that despite using ice, she lost $250 in refrigerated and frozen food.
“God help us if there are morestorms like this coming our way if we still have to depend on Eversource,” she said.
The utilities also met with members of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee in late August. James Judge, chief executive officerof Eversource, said he was sorry for the stress and anxiety of customers and communities because of the storm, particularly during the pandemic, the weak economy, heat waves this summer and higher energy costs billed in July.
Attorney General William Tongtold regulators the utilities were “not ready for the magnitude of this storm.” PURA’sinquiry should determine “what was known or knowable to Eversource and United Illuminating about this storm and did they appropriately plan, he said.
Tong called on the utilities to reimburse customers for spoiled food and medicine and not wait for PURA’s investigation to resolve the issue of losses related to the storm.
Rep. Mitch Bolinsky, R-Newtown, said residents of western Connecticut “sat and sat and sat” for three days before the first repair truck arrived. He and Newtown First Selectman called Lamont to intervene and have work crews sent to the area, he said.