Blame trees, other states, overhead power lines and poor communication for the chaos that followed Tropical Storm Irene.
At least that is what the state’s government and utility officials are doing.
After Irene slowed rolled over Connecticut on Aug. 28, more than 850,000 ratepayers of state and municipal utilities were without electricity, including nearly 200,000 who waited more than five days for power to be restored.
Connecticut’s totals are nowhere near the worst among the Irene-impacted states: New Jersey, Virginia and New York all had more ratepayers lose power. Connecticut — with its significantly smaller population of 3.5 million — didn’t even have the greatest percentage of customers without electricity. That honor goes to Rhode Island, which left 69 percent of its ratepayers in the dark.
As the power came back on in Connecticut, the inquiries began. How much of the aftermath was Irene’s fault and how much was self-inflicted? Should so many ratepayers have lost power, especially as the storm weakened as it approached the state? Should the power have been out for so long? Why did so many not know when their power was coming back?
“Everybody believes people were without power for too long, even the electric utilities,” said Roy Occhiogrosso, senior advisor to Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy. “Their performance needs to be reviewed.”
Last week, politicians launched inquiries into the preparation and response. The utilities launched self-assessments. The finger pointing began.
“We know we have a lot of things to look at,” said Mitch Gross, spokesman for Berlin-based Connecticut Light & Power, which had 671,789 of its 1.2 million customers lose power.
The easy target was the trees. Connecticut loves the aesthetic beauty of its heavily wooded area; the tourist dollars that come with the fall colors; and the cost savings that comes from not trimming trees near power lines.
Trees fell over, tangled power lines, blocked roads and kept power restoration work from even starting while electric crews waited for trees to be cleared.
“We have one of the most heavily wooded service areas in the country,” Gross said.
New Haven-based United Illuminating, which had 158,000 of its 324,000 customers lose electricity, will ask the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority for more power in trimming and removing trees outside its utility easement, said Michael West, United Illuminating spokesman.
The next finger target was other states. As Irene approached, CL&P and United Illuminating figured if the state had significant power loss, they could call on crews from other states to help restore electricity. Problems arose when Connecticut’s surrounding states got caught up in their own recovery efforts; there were no crews to spare.
This left CL&P and United Illuminating to reach out to far-off lands such as the Midwest for restoration assistance.
“For the manpower that they had and what they were able to get their hands on from other states … the utilities did a remarkable job in turning the power back on,” said State Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, co-chair of the General Assembly’s Energy & Technology Committee.
Overhead power lines were also a problem. Since Connecticut already has the second highest electricity rates in the nation — behind Hawaii — the state wouldn’t want to absorb the cost of putting power lines underground, which can cost at least twice as much as overhead lines.
“Underground helps you avoid many of the elements, but there is cost commitment to it,” West said. United Illuminating has 3,000 miles of overhead power lines.
Underground power lines aren’t necessarily the solution anyway, Gross said. Many of the CL&P customers who were without power for several days were serviced by underground lines, which are harder to fix during outages. Uprooted trees, excessive water from rain or flooding and other shifts in the earth can cause underground power lines to not work during storms.
Despite the reasons the power went out and stayed out, one of the first calls for improvement for future emergencies is communication.
CL&P readily admits its communication during the storm and subsequent outage should have been better, Gross said. The company needs to change how it provides information to local officials, who can pass it along to residents in need.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Courtney sent CL&P and UI a letter on Sept. 6 telling them they need to communicate better. The letter said emergency operations between municipalities and utilities should be coordinated; a clearer timeline for power restoration should be established and updated frequently; and the utilities should have year-round community liaison with each town and city in their service areas.
The General Assembly will convene a forum of its Energy & Technology, Public Safety, Labor & Public Employees, and Planning & Development committees on the preparation and response before, during and after Irene.
“We not only want to understand how things worked but how we can make things better,” Fonfara said. “There will be another storm.”
Gov. Malloy is launching a full review of the Irene preparation and response, not just of the electric utilities but of other entities that were involved including the state’s 211 system, the phone companies, state emergency workers.
“It really is a chance to figure out what didn’t work and how can lessons be learned from that,” Occhiogrosso said.
Malloy’s review will be comprehensive and is not intended to be reactionary, Occhiogrosso said.
Whatever the results of the government’s reviews — along with CL&P and United Illuminating’s own internal reviews — there will be some hard decisions to make, Fonfara said.
Trimming trees, having more in-state work crews, undergrounding power lines and placing additional requirements on the utilities, including added communiciation, all comes at a cost, Fonfara said.
“There’s no cake and eating it, too, here,” Fonfara said.