What to Know
- More than 600,000 Connecticut customers remain without electricity Thursday morning. Governor Lamont has declared a state of emergency and asked President Trump for a federal declaration.
- Cell phone towers are losing capabilities, according to a letter the governor sent to the White House, and some nursing homes and correctional facilities are on generators.
- The full restoration process is expected to take at least several days, according to the utilities, but the governor said he wants power to be back for an overwhelming number of residents by the end of the week.
Hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents remain without power as the cleanup continues following Tropical Storm Isaias, which left widespread damage across the state and entire towns in the dark. The outages are continuing into another day as many try to work from home amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and as the forecast calls for increasing heat and humidity in the coming days.
As of Thursday morning, Eversource was still reporting more than 530,000 customers without power and United Illuminating had more than 75,000 customers without electricity. At the peak number of outages on Wednesday, at least 715,000 households were without power as the cleanup from the storm began.
The weather is expected to comfortable Thursday for clean up activities, according to the First Alert Weather team, with the dew point only expected in the 50s and high temperatures in the mid 80s. However, a heat wave is expected to start Sunday and the humidity will continue to increase starting Friday.
Governor Ned Lamont declared a state of emergency Wednesday for Connecticut to be able to get in additional resources to help with recovery. The governor has also asked President Donald Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a Presidential Emergency Declaration to help with the cleanup and recovery.
Governor Ned Lamont met with Eversource executives and said he expects to see quick results from the utility company because he has "a house on fire."
The governor said he wants most residents of Connecticut to have their electricity back by the end of the week and said he doesn't "want any excuses" from the power companies.
"We've got to get this state up and operating again with a working electric system, and i want that done overwhelmingly by the end of this week and i'm going to try to hold people accountable the best I can," said Lamont. Lamont said Eversource has restored power to 200,000 people but "that's not good enough for me."
In the governor's letter to the president, Lamont said it is anticipated that "full restoration may take a week or more."
"Right now, I've got a house on fire so to speak and I need the fire department there fully staffed," Lamont said.
Gov. Ned Lamont spent part of the day on Wednesday getting a first-hand look at the damage left behind by Tropical Storm Isaias.
The situation only appears to be growing more urgent and dire. In his letter to the president, the governor said 33 nursing homes are on generator power, cell towers are losing capabilities and four correctional facilities are on generators. The governor also said 31 public water systems are on generators.
This is one of the largest power outage events in the state's modern history, among the ranks of the October snowstorm, Tropical Storm Irene, Hurricane Gloria, and Hurricane Sandy.
Old Lyme and other shoreline towns saw significant damage left in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias.
Craig Hallstrom, President of Regional Electric Operations for Eversource Energy, said Wednesday he understands the urgency in getting power back to Connecticut's residents. However, he said it's too soon to have a timeline for restoration because the company is still evaluating the damage.
"We understand their frustration. We're going to get this done as quickly as possible," Hallstrom said.
Eversource currently has 450 electric restoration crews and 235 tree crews working across the state, with plans to double those numbers in next 24 hours, according to Hallstrom. Restoration crews could be seen arriving Wednesday from other states, including Maine.
An executive from Eversource answered questions from the media about the power outages that hit the state after Tropical Storm Isaias.
United Illuminating said it has already restored powers to tens of thousands of customers, but that it expects the process to take at least several days to get everyone back on the grid.
"At its peak we had 123,000 customers without power," said Tony Marone, President and CEO of United Illuminating, in a statement Wednesday night. "We currently have fewer than 90,000 customers without power, so progress is being made. Be assured that UI crews, contractors and partners are working diligently day and night to restore service as safely and quickly as possible. This work will take time and continue until every customer is restored. We ask for your patience during this process.
Lamont said there will be time to do postmortems on what happened with the outages.
"To be blunt, I don't see my progress for all the progress we've made" in terms of strengthening and modernizing our grid, Lamont said. But he said he wants to focus on getting power back first.
Calls for Investigation Into Utilities
Governor Lamont said he wants the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to begin an investigation into the response of the utility companies for their response to Tropical Storm Isaias.
In a press release, the governor's office said, "The governor said that the companies’ response to the storm has been wholly inadequate and does not meet the obligations for the critical resources they are responsible for providing on behalf of Connecticut residents. He wants to know what specific steps the companies took in the lead up to Tropical Storm Isaias, which had been forecast to impact Connecticut several days prior to making landfall and remained relatively on the track that meteorologists had predicted."
"The restoration effort that is already underway is likely to last several days, and customers who are currently without service should factor that into their planning," UI said in an email to customers on Tuesday night.
“Tropical Storm Isaias was a significant weather event, comparable to major storms Connecticut has faced in the past,” said Tony Marone, UI’s President and CEO, said in a press release. “We saw damage across our electric system, in all of the 17 towns and cities we serve, with more than 1,600 outage-causing events and more than 1,000 wires down that for safety reasons crews must address.”
Some State Parks Reopen
After closing all state parks, forests and campgrounds for Wednesday, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection reopened some locations Thursday.
Click here for the latest list.
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