Branford Residents Went Days Without Power, Hearing Called

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

HARTFORD, CT – The General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on Eversource’s response to the Oct. 29-30 wind and rainstorm that left hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents without power. Among the hardest hit towns were Branford, Guilford and Madison.

The chairman of the committee is Branford State Rep. Lonnie Reed, who said last week that her “phone rang off the hook during the storm” with calls from constituents upset about the length of time it took for the lights to go back on.

It wasn’t until five days after the storm, that everyone in Branford, Guilford and Madison had their power back. Reed noted that many businesses in her hometown of Branford “were shut down for a number of days” due to the storm.

“You can call it literally the perfect storm,” Reed, said. “There was a bad storm, lots of rain, high winds that knocked down power lines - but there was also a lack of immediate response that we want to look at.”

Reed’s committee will actually have two hearings. The first will be on Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Legislative Office Building. It will include invited speakers and municipal leaders.

A second meeting, at which the general public will be invited to speak, will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 28th.

Reed said one of her big concerns is about Eversource staffing during the storm. “Where was the workforce?” Reed wondered.

She said the storm response left her wondering how much Eversource has outsourced to contractors and that “they don’t have enough resources in state to handle these kind of storms anymore.”

Reed said she’d like to have the hearings - as soon as next week - if schedules come together.

Pushing the committee to hold such hearings are Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who wrote to the leaders of the Energy and Technology Committee asking that they convene an informational public forum.

The letter asked the committee “to examine Eversource’s “seeming lack of proper storm preparedness and lack of a quick, effective storm response in advance of and following the damaging windstorm of October 29-30 which left more than 100,000 Connecticut residents in the dark for multiple days – particularly residents of eastern Connecticut.”

Lawmakers in the eastern part of the state were busy for days following the storm responding to constituents without power.

“Once again, too many customers were left in the dark without adequate communication from Eversource,” Duff said. “To make matters worse, residents of New Hampshire received automated telephone updates regarding power restoration efforts in Connecticut and vice versa.”

Duff added: “I believe that a review of Eversource’s storm response is particularly warranted in light of Eversource’s new request of state regulators to approve a three-year, $336.8 million rate increase for the company, which would raise the average Connecticut consumer’s electricity bill by 6.8 percent.”

Reed said she called “higher-ups” at Eversource herself during the power recovery effort “and I kept being told the storm was worse than they expected.”

The Branford representative said her concern is, “In these days of major weather events if we are counting on out-of-state help to get to Connecticut what happens if that out-of-state help is somewhere else, such as Texas or Florida.”

An Eversource spokesman defended the company’s response to the storm.

“We understand the senators’ concerns regarding the October 29th storm and we realize how difficult it is for our customers to be without power,” Mitch Gross, Eversource spokesman said.

“It’s important to note this storm caused significant damage to the electric system, affecting most of the 149 communities we serve. Our lineworkers, contractors, out-of-state mutual aid crews and support staff worked around-the-clock restoring power,” Gross said.

He added: “In many cases, the damage was extensive and crews had to rebuild parts of the system, which is a time consuming process. We’re proud of their commitment to this restoration for our customers.”

Gross did concede: “We did experience some technical issues early in the restoration effort but those were addressed and resolved as quickly as possible.”

On the request for a rate increase, Gross said: “The rate review we recently filed with PURA is a request to further strengthen the electric system and continue making improvements to the grid so it’s more resilient against future storms.”

He added: “We take our role as emergency responders extremely seriously. Every storm is different and we learn from each of them. That said, we continue to make improvements to our storm response and emergency preparedness to provide reliable energy for our customers during all weather conditions."

Photo by Jack Kramer