Thousands of Wallingford Residents Without Power

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About 3,000 Wallingford residents were without power as of Wednesday morning thanks to Tuesday’s microburst and the Wallingford Electric Division is expecting to restore to about half of those customers by midnight.

Electric Division officials are hoping to be able to “restore service to most of the remaining without-power customers by midnight Friday, June 26,” according to a press release.

Officials, however, also said restoration of some services may continue into the weekend.

“Due to the variety of problems that may affect individual customers’ service wires we are unable to provide a precise time at this point for restoration of service to a given customer,” officials said.

• Also see: Photos: Wallingford Sustains Significant Damage During the Storm

Read more from the press release below:

We are being assisted in our restoration efforts by a total of five line crews provided by municipal electric utilities in Massachusetts: three from the Taunton Municipal Light Plant, one from the North Attleboro Electric Department, and one from the Wellesley Municipal Light Plant. We also have four crews from Asplundh Tree Expert Company who are supporting the work of our line forces.

Safety continues to be our primary concern. Our first priority continues to be the securing of all downed wires and hazardous sites. This process sometimes makes it necessary to disconnect power lines that are damaged, which results in even more customers losing power in the short term. We ask our customers for their understanding as we continue to take these steps to ensure that all serious hazards are properly addressed.

It is important that all customers who are without power determine whether there is damage to the service connection to their home or business. If any customer-owned facilities are damaged, these facilities must be repaired by a licensed electrician before the WED can safely restore power. WED crews can only work on WED equipment. Customers who have questions regarding which components of their electrical service are their responsibility should contact the WED Storm Call Center at (203) 265-5055. Also, please see the STORM OUTAGES page on the Town’s website at www.wallingfordelectcric.com for details regarding overhead facilities responsibilities and for other storm restoration information.

As our crews work to repair services to customers’ homes and businesses they will be addressing a number of cases where service lines are down, but the customers still have power. Our personnel will evaluate the condition of these services and in cases where the customers’ facilities are intact they will re-attach the service wires and customers will not experience an interruption. However, in cases where the customers’ facilities are damaged our crews will disconnect service and will reconnect service only after the customers’ facilities are repaired.

We also ask our customers who have emergency generators to use these devices properly in order to keep our linemen safe as they work to restore power. Please do not connect your home generator directly to your home or business’s wiring. The generator should be connected through an approved cut-off switch that will automatically disconnect the home or business from the power grid when the generator is being used. This work must be done by a licensed electrician.

We thank our customers for their understanding as we work to restore power to our community.

Customers who have questions regarding which components of their electrical service are their responsibility should contact the WED Customer Service Group, Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM at 203-294-2020.