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As late Monday morning, Aug. 23, more than 8,000 of Eversource’s 1.28 million customers in the state are reporting outages.
United Illuminating is working to repair seven active outages impacting more than 1,100 of the company’s customers.
The most outages are being reported in:
- Pomfret (708),
- Woodstock (659),
- Thompson (628),
- Brooklyn (595),
- Plainfield (536),
- Canterbury (528),
- Town of Fairfield (454)
- Putnam (407)
Crews from out of state and Canada joined local employees as they worked through the night to help make repairs to approximately 20,000 customers who lost power overnight.
“Stringing new wire, clearing tree damage, and repairing equipment—crews were busy last night cleaning up and bringing power back to customers,” Eversource officials stated. “We have our eyes on stormy weather coming through today and are ready to respond to any additional outages.”
Eversource officials had planned for nearly a million customers to lose power for days, but the storm tracked further east, which prevented excessive wind gusts and spared many New Englanders from the brunt of the storm.
“While the shift in Henri’s track spared Connecticut from the devastation it could have caused, the storm delivered the expected heavy rains, further saturating grounds that were already soaked from the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred and other storms,” Eversource President of Regional Electric Operations Craig Hallstrom stated. “In addition to the thousands of line and tree crews we have working, we have an army of people behind the scenes supporting a safe restoration.
Customers should be cautious when starting their own storm clean-up – be careful moving or cutting tree limbs and look for any wires that may be entangled in debris, officials noted.
Customers who are without power and using a generator should be sure the generator is located well away from their home or business and that the transfer switch is working properly.
“I’m very proud of our employees – many of whom sacrificed their vacations – and their extraordinary efforts working out in the weather today,” Hallstrom continued. “We realize how difficult it is to be without power, especially on hot and humid days like we’re expecting this coming week and we’re committed to staying on the job until every customer has their power restored.”
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