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The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) imposed a $29 million penalty against Eversource for what the company described as failures during the storm.
The fine comes the same week as four major utility companies in neighboring New York were hit with more than $86 million in fines for their response to Isaias.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who advocated for the maximum allowed penalty, has been ardent that the utility company should pay for its poor response to the storm.
According to Tong, Eversource:
- Was imprudently unprepared to communicate with its customers during the Tropical Storm Isaias emergency;
- Imprudently administered the Make Safe phase of the storm response related to road clearing;
- Ineffectively implemented its town liaison program during the critical early days of the public safety emergency.
PURA said that Eversource “failed to comply with the applicable performance and prudence standards for each of these fundamental areas of storm preparedness and response.”
“Eversource failed its customers and put Connecticut families at risk,” Tong said. “Their response to Tropical Storm Isaias was unacceptable, and PURA is right to impose severe penalties.
“This penalty will be paid rightfully by the company and its shareholders—not ratepayers,” he added. “Eversource has much work to do to regain our trust, and we will be holding them accountable at every step along the way.”
An Eversource spokesman defended the company’s response and said that crews worked as quickly as possible.
“Time and time again our employees work tirelessly to restore power as quickly as possible and support our customers and communities when outages occur,” the spokesperson stated. “We cannot control the weather, or the damage that is caused by falling trees and vegetation when storm damage occurs.
“However, our employees are relentless in returning to the field every time they are called upon to repair the damage and get the power back on as quickly as safety allows. Our focus now is on the future and assuring that our emergency response efforts are intensive and that our employees are safe and secure in doing their jobs on behalf of our customers and communities."
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