Name: Eversource says customers should expect days without power after Tropical Storm Isaias leaves more than 720K Connecticut homes and businesses in the dark;
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Eversource says customers should expect days without power after Tropical Storm Isaias leaves more than 720K Connecticut homes and businesses in the dark;

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AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantAug 05, 2020 at 11:37 amConnecticut residents should be prepared for days without power, a spokesman for Eversource said Wednesday, as crews fanned out across the state to begin cleaning up the path of destruction left by the fast-moving Tropical Storm Isaias and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses remained in the dark.The spokesman, Frank Poirot, said the utility was continuing to assess the damage to the state’s electric infrastructure after the storm left more than 720,000 customers without power statewide. He said it was the state’s third-worst weather event in terms of total outages behind the October 2011 snowstorm and Tropical Storm Irene.Advertisement“We’re still working through the assessment to find out what impact this storm exactly had on our system,” Poirot said in an interview on WFSB-TV. “Once we have our arms around a detailed assessment of the damage, then we’ll be able to provide our customers with a reliable restoration time. Putting out anything less ... it wouldn’t help our customers. We have to get that assessment correct.“The damage was quite extensive. Just getting a line truck into some of these streets which are clogged by multiple trees is going to take a lot of work. That’s what has us motivated to say it’s going to be a multiple day ... restoration for sure, for many of our customers. The harder-hit areas in southwest Connecticut are looking at damage we haven’t seen in quite some time.”AdvertisementLamont, touring storm damage in Wethersfield Wednesday morning, agreed it will be at least a few days before power is fully restored.“I don’t want to overpromise, it will be at least a few days,” he said.Lamont declared a state of emergency about 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, saying several emergency steps need to be taken to facilitate the restoration of power to more than 700,000 homes and businesses.“I remain in consistent communication with municipal leaders and utility officials so that we can move resources to where they are most needed at this time. I continue to have regular communications with our Emergency Operations Center, which is managing both the response to this storm and our continued response to COVID-19,” Lamont said.He said Eversource had 1,000 crews working and more were arriving from northern New England. Southwest Connecticut was hit most severely by the storm, Lamont said, but damage was widespread across the state.Eastbound Route 44 in Avon is a traffic fiasco with the traffic light @ Route 167 out of commission. — Don Stacom (@StacomCourant)Wethersfield Mayor Mike Rell said 65% of his town was without power and 30 roads were blocked. People living in an apartment building in the town that had its roof torn off during the height of the storm Tuesday spent the night in local hotels, he said.Elected officials were already finger-pointing at Eversource, the state’s dominant electric utility, saying they were unprepared for the storm. The criticism comes on top of customers’ and legislators’ outrage over recently approved rate hikes that have since been suspended.“PURA routinely reviews and approves some form of customer rate increase for Eversource to pay for electrical system ‘hardening’ so Eversource’s infrastructure becomes more resilient to storms over the years,” said Sen. Norm Needleman, an Essex Democrat who also serves as the town’s first selectman. “My question is, where has all that money gone? What did customers get for their investment in Eversource? Why isn’t Eversource investing in and hiring new linemen? We’ve got nearly three-quarters of a million people without power in Connecticut today – including nearly all of Essex – which is about the same number of people who lost power during that devastating ice storm in April 2011. It seems very little has changed with Eversource over the past decade, now matter how much money consumers throw at them.”AdvertisementNeedleman planned a news conference Wednesday afternoon with other elected officials at Essex Town Hall to discuss Eversource’s response to the storm.“We’re working on it ... that’s the best I can do right now” Mitch Gross, another Eversource spokesman, told WVIT-TV when asked when people can expect to find out when they can get power.“Following damage assessment, we are making sure the essential services are taken care of. Hospitals, water treatment facilities, police, fire, making sure they are up and running,” he said. “Then we go to work to restore the greatest number of customers at a single time. We look at the circuits, we look at the situations. How can we restore the greatest block of customers at a single time? From there, we continue on.”One central Connecticut municipal leader who did not want to speak officially said Eversource didn’t even dispatch assessment teams until Wednesday morning.The Eversource liaison with that community provided only spotty information all Tuesday night and was working from home without power or internet access, the official said.The utility was not following its usual practice of coordinating with local public works departments about which transmission lines to repair and when, the official said.Advertisement“Usually they let us know where they’re going, our truck follows theirs - so when they clear the line, we can move the trees,” the official said.A primary transmission line was on fire at one point just after the storm; an Eversource contact promised to assign staff to help with that, but after a long delay the town’s fire department had to deal with the fire on its own, the official said.In New Britain, Eversource reported 5,705 customers — mostly residential — were powerless as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. The utility said 25 transformers were out of service, said Justin Dorsey, chief of staff for Mayor Erin Stewart.“We just had a call with Eversource. They said they sent out a damage assessment team this morning, they had no ETA on restoration,” Dorsey said late Wednesday morning.State parks will remain closed Wednesday after experiencing extensive damage to trees, state officials said.By late morning, more than two dozen state roads remained closed for debris or wires in the road.AdvertisementAt least one person was killed during the storm by a falling tree, but the extent of any other injuries and the full scope of the damage was not known.A 66-year-old Naugatuck man died just after 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, during the height of the storm, when he tried to remove branches from in front of his vehicle on Andrew Mountain Road and was struck by another falling tree, Naugatuck police said late Tuesday night. The man, who was not identified publicly, died at the scene.Officials from across Connecticut were reporting large swaths of downed trees, blocked roadways and damaged infrastructure as they braced residents for a lengthy cleanup. A number of towns, including Greenwich, have issued a state of emergency.Among the hardest hit towns were Danbury, Fairfield, Cheshire, Norwalk and Westport, each with more than 10,000 outages following the storm. The damage was so widespread there were outages in every single community in Connecticut.The storm, which moved in with an unexpected speed, struck southwestern Connecticut by about 1 p.m., but spread across western and central Connecticut in little over an hour, bringing gusts upwards of 60 miles per hour and soaking rain. The rain left by late afternoon, but powerful winds lingered.In Greenwich, a woman was trapped in car when a tree fell on it and when an ambulance arrived to help her, a tree fell on the ambulance, too, Lamont said Tuesday afternoon. No one was injured, he added.AdvertisementThe powerful storm brought threats of tornadoes and subsequent warnings from the National Weather Service. Wind gusts as high as 66 mph were recorded at Lighthouse Point in East Haven, according to the weather service.There were no definitive reports of tornadoes as of Tuesday evening, but wind damage was reported through much of the state. In Wethersfield, powerful gusts lifted the roof off a portion of an apartment building on Maple Street, but residents said no one was injured.We’re starting to see damage to the electric system as the winds pick up and trees topple over. Crews are working to restore power as quickly as safety allows. If you see a downed power line, ALWAYS assume it’s live, stay away, and call 9-1–1. Call us any time: 800-286-2000. — Eversource CT (@EversourceCT)Trees and power lines were blown down across West Hartford, including at least one instance of a tree clipping a home. Police reported 56 streets and intersections were blocked by wires, trees or both.In Danbury, crews were working on 70 to 80 trees down in roadways late Tuesday afternoon, but that count did not include the many more trees that were knocked down but not immediately blocking roadways, Mayor Mark Boughton said. Another 20 trees were ripped down just along the city’s Richter Park Golf Course, let alone private properties, he added.“It’s probably the most damage I’ve seen in a long time from a storm, probably even more than the [2018] microburst, because it’s more widespread,” Boughton said “It’s just crazy out there. You’ve got to be careful and you’ve got to be patient, it just takes time.”As it happensGet the latest updates on Coronavirus and other breaking news events happening across Connecticut &gt; Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick said her city was monitoring “hundreds” of trees and wires in roadways.AdvertisementBristol reported dozens of trees down and numerous street blockages late in the afternoon.The city brought in water and parks department workers to help clear downed trees, and late Tuesday was looking for private contractors with large trucks to help. The fire department also was called out to help two motorists who were trapped in their cars by falling trees.In Burlington, motorists were left to figure out their own solutions on several residential roads where huge trees with wires crossed the pavement. I-691 West just before Ex 2 a tree is down in the left lane. Hazards are happening all over the state. If you MUST be on the roads drive with EXTRA caution. Stay safe everyone. — CT State Police (@CT_STATE_POLICE)Isaias, a hurricane when it blew through states to the south, was downgraded to a tropical storm at about 3 a.m. Tuesday, when its winds dropped from 75 to 70 mph about 35 miles southwest of Greenville, North Carolina, forecasters said.Courant staff writers Christine Dempsey, Zach Murdock, Dave Owens and Don Stacom contributed to this story.Christine Dempsey can be reached at . Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantAug 05, 2020 at 11:37 amConnecticut residents should be prepared for days without power, a spokesman for Eversource said Wednesday, as crews fanned out across the state to begin cleaning up the path of destruction left by the fast-moving Tropical Storm Isaias and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses remained in the dark.The spokesman, Frank Poirot, said the utility was continuing to assess the damage to the state’s electric infrastructure after the storm left more than 720,000 customers without power statewide. He said it was the state’s third-worst...

Eversource says customers should expect days without power after Tropical Storm Isaias leaves more than 720K Connecticut homes and businesses in the dark;

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