More than three weeks after a tropical storm knocked out power to most of Connecticut, state lawmakers on Thursday lambasted top management of Massachusetts-based Eversource Energy, venting the frustrations of ratepayers and charging that a slow response and poor communications were unacceptable.
Members of the legislative Energy & Technology Committee questioned Eversource CEO Jim Judge for most of the day, recounting week-long outages caused by downed trees that blocked driveways, streets and entire neighborhoods for more than a million customers.
While stressing that Eversource isn’t required, like utilities in other states, to provide reinbursement for spoiled food, Judge hinted that the company might provide something to customers, eventually, maybe.
It was the biggest public backlash against a state-regulated electric monopoly since the August and October storms of 2011 paralyzed the state that led to legislation that mandated better response times and improved communications.
State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, said his town experienced about 98-percent outages and 200 roads blocked. “Unfortunately, we had a lot of people who were still without power going six, seven, eight days,” said Steinberg, who noticed a shortage of so-called make-safe crews to partner with local public works officials to clear live lines blocking roads.
“The current regulatory environment is not working for Connecticut,” Steinberg said.
“There was great frustration, maybe it was a communication issue, that there were not more make-safe crews available,” Steinberg said. “Which retarded the reopening of streets and the subsequent restoration work. We saw four, five, six crews, some of them out-of-state crews, sitting...
from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/State-lawmakers-hit-Eversource-CEO-on-storm-15520263.php
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