Legislators Want Hearing On Eversource Storm Response

CONNECTICUT — Local mayors and state legislators are incensed over Eversource’s preparation and response after Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power to nearly a million of the company’s Connecticut customers.

Around 38 percent of Danbury was still in the dark Friday, three days after the storm hit. Mayor Mark Boughton said it was probably the worst storm response he has seen in his 20 years as mayor.

“They've got some explaining to do,” he said at a Friday afternoon news conference.

Eversource restored power to around 552,000 customers and expects to have power back to nearly all the other 404,000 customers by the end of Tuesday. The company currently has more than 1,000 crews working on restoration efforts, said Craig Hallstrom, president of regional electric operations.

The company predicted there would be a maximum of 380,000 outages, according to regulatory filings. It had 450 line crews and 250 tree crews available Wednesday.

The state Legislature wants to hold a hearing about Eversource’s preparedness and response to the storm, said Rep. David Arconti (D-Danbury), chair of the Energy and Technology Committee.

Legislators are looking to hear from Eversource CEO James Judge, who so far hasn’t publicly commented on his company’s storm response.

The matter may be taken up in a special session or the regular session next year, Arconti said. Legislators said they need to know why widespread outages happened when ratepayers have been paying hundreds of millions of dollars to make the grid more resilient to storm-related outages.

It may also be time to take a second look at the state’s decision in the 1990s to deregulate the energy sector, Arconti said.

Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority opened an investigation into Eversource and United Illuminating’s preparation and response to the storm.

See also: Trump Declares Emergency In CT: Here’s What That Means, What It Does For Us

• 440,000 Still Without Power In CT: Town-By-Town Updates

Sen. Richard Blumenthal called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate Eversource as well.

“Eversource made a bet, they didn’t spend on preparedness because they were betting this storm would pass by without doing much damage,” he said. “They lost the bet.”

In the end it's the customers who have to pay, he said.

“If you feel like this failure is déjà vu all over again you are right,” Blumenthal said. “Again and again and again Eversource has failed its customers going back to 2011 when power was out for 10 days.”

Blumenthal said Eversource can’t cry poor over the situation because of its recent profits. The company reported earnings of $587 million for the first half of 2020, which was $247 million more than the first half of 2019.

Months ago, the state was on the hunt for ventilators due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now it has been on the hunt for generators, Gov. Ned Lamont said. The state is expecting a large shipment of generators soon, as there is concern about some generators failing after three or four days of constant use.

There is particular concern for places like nursing homes, cell service towers and water treatment plants, Lamont said.

Lamont said mayors have a right to be outraged over Eversource’s response. Town crews are often ready to clear storm debris out of roads, but they have to wait for someone from Eversource to tell them if a downed wire is safe or not, Lamont said. That typically involves only one person from Eversource, he said.