Malloy, Utility Execs Plead For Patience on Power Restoration

After touring storm-ravaged portions of the state Wednesday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy again briefed the media on the damages wrought by Irene and the efforts to restore power throughout the state.

“Obviously the issue in Connecticut right now is power,” Malloy said. “Power, power, power. It is on everybody’s mind who is without it, and everybody who has it is grateful to have it, and that tells you what type of commodity it is.”

After a brief update on actions the state has taken in recent days to provided support and relief services to affected municipalities, Malloy turned the briefing over to the chief executives of Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating, the state’s two largest electrical providers, who told reporters that the companies were undertaking the largest power restoration efforts in their histories but that some areas of the state could still be without power until the middle of next week.

“Usually an outage when you have a storm is an inconvenience for customers, but this has gone to where it’s a hardship for many customers,” said James Torgerson, United Illuminating’s chief executive officer. “We understand loss of electricity is a big problem for people.”

Torgerson said that power outages peaked at 155,000 UI customers over the weekend, but that the company had restored about 70 percent of those customers by 5 p.m. Wednesday, or more than 100,000 customers, and that it hoped to be down to less than 10,000 customers without power by the weekend.

“That’s still the goal we set yesterday, and we think that’s very much achievable,” he said.

Connecticut Light & Power Chief Operating Officer Jeff Butler told reporters that his company had restored over 870,000 customers who lost power as a result of the storm as of Wednesday afternoon, but still had a little less than 300,000 customers without power.

“That’s steady progress and our employees have been doing a great job, but for the 290,000 customers without power we recognize we have a lot of work to do,” he said.

Butler said that CL&P expected to be down to about 200,000 customers still without power by Thursday morning, and at less than 100,000 customers still without power by midnight on Saturday. He said that some customers in the “hardest hit” areas could still be without power until next Wednesday, but that CL&P was doing everything it could to import more line crews to the state to speed up its restoration timetable.

“We’re going to do everything in our power to pull those restoration times in,” he said.

Butler said CL&P had about 950 crews working across the state to restore power Wednesday, but could be up to as many as 1,200 crews by the weekend. He said additional management was also being imported from other Northeast Utilities subsidiaries in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to help coordinate the restoration effort.

“1,200 crews is a massive amount of people to manage, so we’re bringing the structure in place to ensure we maintain that efficiency,” he said.

Torgerson said that UI typically employs about 65 crews to handle its power restoration issues, but were up to 275 crews working throughout the state and had 33 more crews expected from Indiana and Wisconsin expected to join them by tomorrow morning.

Both Butler and Torgerson said that the electrical companies would continue to provide constant updates of the restoration efforts through their websites, social media and the press. Butler said that CL&P already had restoration projections posted on its website for 46 affected towns, and that it planned to have the same projections for all 149 towns it services by Thursday morning.

“What customers really want to know, and we understand their frustration, is when their power will be restored,” he said. “Not knowing, it just really continues to build that frustration”

William Bryan, a deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy who was helping to coordinate the state’s power restoration efforts, told reporters that despite the large number of customers in Connecticut still without power, the electrical companies were actually performing restoration efforts above the national average. Bryan said that after a large storm like Irene, 60 to 70 percent of customers would typically see their power restored within three to six days, while restoration for the remaining 30 percent could take as long as 10 days to two weeks. Both CL&P and United Illuminating have stated that they hope to have all customers restored by the middle of next week.

“I would argue that you guys are actually at par or above par right now in that case, which speaks very well for your utility companies,” Bryan said, but noted that even the elevated restoration efforts “may not be any consolation to those currently without power.”