Community Corner

CL&P Providing Updated Restoration Projections To Residents

The Company's President Says Electric Customers In 47 Towns Can Now Go Online And View Updated Power Restoration Estimates.

As some residents head into their fourth full day without power officials with CL&P continued to assure those who are still in the dark that they will likely get their power back in the next few days.

But for some, the lights may not come on again for more than a week.

As of 6 a.m. today CL&P had restored power to 568,000 of its customers, leaving 304,000 residences and businesses without power, Jeff Butler, CL&P’s president, said in a briefing this morning with the media.

As of 8:30 a.m., over 5,000 Stonington customers or 67 percent remained without power, and 71 percent of Groton was without power.

The company, Bulter said, is trying to provide its customers with as much updated information as possible on its website, particularly in the Cheshire, Tolland, Torrington and Hartford areas, where CL&P has regional work centers. Those centers, he said, serve a combined total of 47 towns and CL&P’s website now has updated restoration projections for those areas, Butler said.

“We recognize that for many of our customers, they want to know when they’re lights are going to be back on,” Butler said. “That is a primary focus for us right now.”

As of this morning, the company had 942 work crews throughout the state and by Friday will have 1,200 “so we can expedite our restoration as quickly as possible,” Butler said.

He reiterated that the company’s focus remains on getting power back to town centers so they can again begin providing local populations with the critical services they need; gas, groceries and medicines.

“Within 36 hours our goal is to get our town centers in the hardest hit areas re-energized,” Butler said.

He also again predicted that by Saturday, all but about 100,000 of CL&P’s customers will have their electricity back and everyone in the state will have power restored by next Wednesday.  With more work crews coming into the state daily, that projected restoration time could get pushed up and complete restoration might happen sooner, Butler added.

Another priority for the power company, he added, is working with telecommunication companies and towns on restoring power to cell towers and focusing on other important infrastructure, such as getting roads cleared and restoring power to schools and wastewater treatment facilities.

In some towns, roads remain blocked by downed trees and tree limbs because, for safety reasons, local road crews can’t remove debris that hangs over wires.

In addition, Butler said some areas where power has been restored might see outages again as trees weakened by the storm come down. Work crews also may have to cut power to restored areas as they work on repairing damaged lines. Those latter outages, Butler said, should be short lived.

“There are trees that are still going down and as we restore areas there may be a need to de-energize lines … some customers may see brief outages.”

The company also is focusing its efforts on some of the hard-hit areas along Connecticut’s shoreline, from Fairfield County and extending east and north along the coast up through Connecticut’s border with Rhode Island, Butler said.



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