Top utility regulator among few in her town to lose power
WEST HARTFORD — The head of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority was one of less than 1 percent of Eversource customers in town who lost power after Tropical Storm Henri made landfall.
“The irony was there,” said Marissa P. Gillett, the top electric utility regulator in the state. “There was a massive tree that came down and fell right on the line. I could also see with my eyes that the power outage was significant. There were a lot of crews out there, some from as far away as Georgia.”
While she was at the emergency operations center on Sunday, her husband and twin 5-year-olds were at home without power for about nine hours from 2 to 11 p.m.
She said her family did not receive any special treatment.
Gillett said her early assessment on Monday was that Eversource was prepared for Tropical Storm Henri compared to last year’s Tropical Storm Isaias, when she remembers being without power for over a week.
“We’re still assessing how both the utilities performed during the storm,” Gillett said. “(Sunday) was a marked difference between what we saw from Eversource this time last year.”
The difference, Gillett said, is that Eversource was prepared based on the available data.
“One of our biggest criticisms of their storm response during Isaias was that we felt the data indicated that they underprepared based on the best available information,” Gillett said. “We really took them to task.”
PURA initially fined Eversource $30 million, the maximum allowed under state law. That was later lowered to $29 million.
“They have all these tools at their disposal to prepare appropriately,” Gillett said. “Based on what we were hearing from the National Weather Service and others, I think the level of preparation of what we saw [for Henri] was in line with their expectations. I think everyone is relieved that Henri took a turn. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have prepared as if it wasn’t going to.”