The restoration estimates posted on Connecticut Light & Power’s website will be refined as more customers come back online, the utility company’s president said Wednesday morning.
As of Wednesday at 8:45 a.m., the company was estimating 99 percent restoration in Beacon Falls, Oxford and Seymour by 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
The estimate is frustrating residents, especially in Seymour, where 100 percent of CL&P customers have been without power since about 10 a.m. Sunday (Oct. 30).
Go to the Valley Indy’s Facebook page to read what your neighbors are saying.
Jeff Butler, CL&P’s president, spoke Wednesday morning at a press conference with Gov. Malloy at the state’s emergency operation center in Hartford.
Butler said power has been restored to 410,000 customers. That leaves 548,000 customers to go.
The company is sticking by its projection of 99 percent restoration by the end of Sunday.
“I know that four days without power can be very challenging, very difficult, very frustrating and very upsetting,” Butler said.
He said while CL&P crews continue to clear downed wires and trees off local roads, the company has shifted into its restoration phase.
All high-energy transmission lines in the state have been repaired, Butler said.
Two transmission lines failed after being repaired, including one that feeds a power substation in Milford, Butler said.
Transmission and substation damage has been an issue locally. Click here for more info.
Butler said the company will be keeping towns in the loop as to when citizens will be brought back online.
He emphasized the weekend storm was much worse than Tropical Storm Irene.
During Irene, 730,000 customers were “impacted.” That’s 59 percent of all CL&P customers.
With this storm, thanks to its early-season snow that brought down trees already heavy with leaves, 955,000 customers were “impacted,” or 77 percent of all CL&P customers.
“This event is a magnitude greater than Irene, which we all went through just two months ago,” Butler said.
