President Donald Trump has granted Gov. Ned Lamont’s request for a presidential emergency declaration, which will allow Connecticut to seek direct federal assistance and accelerate its response to damage caused this week by Tropical Storm Isaias.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) notified Gov. Ned Lamont’s office on Friday morning of the approval, which Lamont had requested on Wednesday, just days after Tropical Storm Isaias left a peak of more than one million ratepayers without electricity.
The governor explained the severity of damage and outages caused by Tuesday’s storm on a phone call with Trump late Thursday night.
“Approval of this declaration is very much appreciated as hundreds of thousands in our state remain without power days after the storm made landfall in Connecticut,” Lamont said in a statement.
The development follows Lamont’s own declaration of a state of emergency in response to the storm on Wednesday morning.
“We’re continuing to work with our federal and local counterparts to assess the damage and may seek additional federal support during the response, recovery, and rebuilding process,” Lamont said.
The state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection is currently assessing statewide damage and whether the state meets certain thresholds to seek a major disaster declaration from the federal government. That status, the governor’s office said, would allow the state and its municipalities to obtain additional federal assistance beyond what the emergency declaration allows.
Meanwhile, as of about 9 a.m. Friday, more than 414,000 Eversource customers remained without power. Eversource, citing difficult working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, said it had restored power to more than 435,000 customers as of 9 p.m. Thursday.
[Click here to view Eversource outages by region]
Eversource, which is the largest utility operator in Connecticut, said Thursday that more than 700 crews are working to repair widespread damage to electricity infrastructure and that it expects significant progress in restoring power to customers by the end of the weekend.
All outage restorations will be “substantially” complete by Tuesday night, the company said.
“We know how urgently our customers need power and we will work tirelessly – with every crew and resource we can muster – until they all have power again,” Craig Hallstrom, Eversource’s president of regional electric operations, said in a statement. “With crews from Canada, Michigan and Massachusetts working alongside our Eversource crews, we remain laser focused on this restoration and are committed to staying on the job around-the-clock until every customer has power back.”
Lamont has criticized Eversource’s response to the storm this week, along with numerous other state politicians.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has opened an investigation into the response by Eversource and the state’s other public electric utility, United Illuminating.
