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08/12/2020 07:00 AMFollowing the devastation left behind by Tropical Storm Isaias, which knocked out power for more than 75 percent of Guilford residents, a week later the town continues to forge ahead with cleanup and power restoration efforts as state lawmakers accuse energy giant Eversource of failing to prepare for the storm and botching its response.
As of Aug. 10, Eversource was reporting that 250 households in Guilford were still without power, according to First Selectman Matt Hoey, while the company promised to have power fully restored by Aug. 11 at noon.
Public Works, fire, and police personnel are still working overtime shifts this week, according to Hoey, and put in long hours over the weekend, while local and state officials still have a “standing huddle” first thing every morning—something that will continue until the crisis is fully dealt with, he said.
State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98) and State Senator Christine Cohen (D-12) have placed blame for the long wait, dangerous wires down, and communication issues squarely on the shoulders of Eversource, which was operating on a lower estimate of the storm’s effects and needed to call in thousands of additional crews from out of state to help restore power.
“Their response has obviously been completely and totally unacceptable, and it’s obvious they were unexplainably unprepared for this storm,” Scanlon told the Courier last week.
Scanlon provided regular updates on his Facebook page during the storm, focusing on specific areas without power or with road blockages. He told the Courier that while he was concentrating on getting power back and trying to help constituents in the short term, he planned to “turn all of that attention to holding [Eversource] accountable and holding their feet to the fire.”
Both Eversource and another Connecticut energy company, United Illuminating, are being investigated by Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA), a division of Department of Energy & Environmental Protection that oversees all utility companies in the state and has the power to levy fines.
Cohen also focused her ire on Eversource, writing a letter to President and CEO James Judge that blames him and the company for failing to anticipate, and failing to react to the storm’s severity, among other things.
“I ask you to explain to the Connecticut General Assembly your inadequate communication structures, lack of a timely, efficient storm response and to provide clear plans on how this will be remedied immediately,” Cohen wrote. “We are at the beginning of the hurricane season, and in the midst of a health pandemic, and I fear that we will be dealing with this horrific and unacceptable situation yet again.”
Among the issues cited by Scanlon, Cohen, and local officials was a plodding and inefficient response to downed wires, which created hazardous road blocks that local emergency responders could not clear until “make safe” crews arrived to ensure they didn’t pose a danger.
Hoey said only one such crew ever made it to Guilford, and they left after “half a day.” Eversource explained that its new policy was to prioritize power restoration over “make safe” efforts, something of which the town was not made aware until after the storm.
These hazardous road blocks remained for days, with some residents effectively blocked into their homes. Lt. Timothy Bernier of the Guilford Police Department (GPD) said residents had resorted to trying to move barriers put up by emergency personnel or circumvent mostly blocked roads, creating an even greater danger to themselves and nearby homeowners.
The GPD posted dashcam footage on Aug. 8 of a large tree bringing down wires and a telephone pole only about 30 feet from a passing motorist on North Madison Road.
Cohen joined in voicing these safety concerns, telling the Courier that having roads blocked for this long was evidence that the plan and procedures Eversource had in place were unacceptably flawed.
“When you have the fire marshal saying, ‘Oh we need you to follow us around so we can free these people who are trapped down roads because [we] can’t get an emergency vehicle down there,’ that’s troubling,” she said. “And hearing that some of these people just became untrapped [Aug. 9] is crazy.”
Hoey said the town was only able to get power back on at Cox and Jones Elementary schools the afternoon of Aug. 9, with both scheduled to be polling locations for the upcoming Aug. 11 primary election. He credited pressure from the Secretary of the State’s Office on Eversource for even making that happen, and said the town had been forced to make emergency plans to bring in generators in order to allow voting, if power had not been restored.
Preparation was another area where Scanlon, Cohen, and others criticized Eversource, with Scanlon pointing out that crews came from as far away as Canada, and could have been here before the storm even hit if the company had planned better.
Cohen pointed out that United Illuminating predicted a harder storm hit than Eversource, and said that “discrepancy” needed to be explained.
“First and foremost, we know that Eversource was not prepared at the same level as some of these other utility companies, and there’s just really no excuse for that,” she said.
Part of the slow response resulted from simply not having enough crews on hand until the company began bringing them in from out of state, according to Cohen, but only after people were sitting at home without power.
In filings with the state, Eversource only predicted 150,000 to 300,000 outages statewide, according to Scanlon. More than 800,000 of their customers would lose power during the storm.
“To me that’s just inexcusable,” Scanlon said.
What the legislative solution might be has not been fully articulated, though both Cohen and Scanlon said they supported the PURA investigation launched last week. Cohen said in a Facebook post over the weekend that she would “look forward to asking...questions in a public hearing setting,” and told the Courier that as of Aug. 10, she had not received a response from Judge to her letter.
Scanlon said that as far as he was concerned, all options were on the table as far as holding Eversource accountable, including breaking up the company.
“The short term solution is what can they do right now to get a better plan in place if a hurricane hits us two weeks from now. The longer term solution is, what is 21st-century electrical delivery? What should that look like? Because it doesn’t look like this.”
Scanlon mentioned a public-private partnership to bury electrical lines or “net-metering,” which would allow people with solar to sell energy to their neighbors, but added that right now, he was in favor of breaking what he characterized as the monopoly Eversource has created.
“Should there be a company that has a monopoly over 149 of the 169 towns in our state? I think the answer to that question is no,” Scanlon said.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D), who toured neighboring Madison on Aug. 10, said Eversource had actually hinted about charging residents storm-related expenses. He called for the resignation of Judge, the Eversource CEO, along with immediate refunds from the company to anyone who had suffered due to the loss of power from the storm.
In Guilford, Hoey said the short-term solution is to keep moving forward with cleanup. He lauded the work of Guilford’s emergency responders, many of whom have been essentially working non-stop since the storm hit on Aug. 4.
“There are people who haven’t spent virtually any time with their family since last Tuesday,” Hoey said. “The work they’re doing as public safety and first responders—they know that that’s what they’re in for. Doesn’t make it any easier when events like this happen, but they’re just doing a tremendous job.”
The cost of the storm is still unknown, though Hoey said the town is tracking all overtime and other storm-related expenses with the expectation that most or all will be refunded by the federal government.
The town will also keep the Community Center at 23 Church Street open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for people who need to charge electronics, shower, or escape the heat, Hoey said.