The Seymour Board of Selectmen met on Zoom Tuesday evening.
SEYMOUR — Seymour government is so angry at Eversource the Board of Selectmen is exploring whether to find another electric company.
“It was beyond frustrating. It was the worst that I’ve seen in my 10 years here,” Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller said of the utility company’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias, which hit the State of Connecticut Aug. 4.
During a meeting Tuesday (Aug. 11), the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a resolution that formally condemned Eversource for seeming “woefully unprepared” to fix more than 3,000 power outages in town after the storm.
Miller noted that storms and power outages aren’t a surprise in New England. But the utility company’s complete lack of information in the days after the storm was a surprise, Miller said.
Thomas Eighmie, the town’s emergency management director, said that Eversource’s response to the storm was the worst he’s seen in some 14 years.
“This time they went five steps backward,” Eighmie said.
The utility company assigns every town a liaison who communicates with town government after storms. After last week’s storm, Seymour’s Eversource liaison had no information for the town.
That’s because the liaison was kept out of the Eversource “war room,” Eighmie said he was told. That cut information coming from Eversource to Seymour to virtually nothing, Eighmie said.
Seymour DPW crews, police, the fire department and OEM went around town after the storm writing lists of wires down, trees on wires, and blocked roads — with the hope of giving it to Eversource.
DPW cleared trees that weren’t near energized power lines. But the utility company couldn’t tell Seymour when they would be in town to start assessing damage.
The company seemed confused and unresponsive to Seymour, Eighmie said.
Two crews arrived in Seymour Friday afternoon, three days after the storm hit — but they left and then were not seen for a day and a half, Eighmie said.
By 6 a.m. Aug. 11, a week after the storm, 14 people were still without power in Seymour (a drop of more than 1,000 from Aug. 10).
The Selectmen put the blame on Eversource management, as opposed to the line crews, and said the utility company’s response put people at risk.
“Eversource’s performance was an absolute disgrace,” said Selectman Al Bruno, who noted that the company is highly profitable and its executives are paid millions of dollars.
The resolution approved gives Miller the ability to explore options. Those options include switching to United Illuminating, joining a class-action lawsuit against Eversource should one arise, working with other towns to come up with a solution — even exploring whether it’s possible for the town to start its own utility.
Anything Miller finds will be brought back to the Board of Selectmen for review.
In a prepared statement prior to the Seymour Board of Selectmen meeting, the utility company pointed on it was on track to have 99 percent of its customers back online by the end of today (Tuesday, Aug. 11).
“The widespread damage caused by Tropical Storm Isaias rivals – and in many cases surpasses – the destruction caused by other recent historic storms. Isaias caused damage at more than 20,000 locations across the state, compared to 16,101 from Tropical Storm Irene and 16,460 for Superstorm Sandy,” the statement read. “Peak outages from Isaias – which occurred on Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 3:30 p.m. – impacted 632,632 customers; peak outages during Irene and Sandy were 671,000 and more than 496,000 respectively.”
The full Selectmen meeting is embedded below:
Seymour’s draft resolution is embedded below.
Seymour Eversource Resolution by The Valley Indy on Scribd
