Connecticut’s electric utilities will provide a systemwide restoration estimate on Thursday morning as they struggle with power outages from Hurricane Sandy, particularly along the shoreline.
Meantime, President Barack Obama quickly declared Fairfield, New Haven, Middlesex, and New London counties disaster areas, exposing them to extra financial resources and manpower to aid in the storm’s aftermath.
Connecticut had nearly 500,000 electric ratepayers without electricity as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. While the outages impacted all areas, the greatest percentage were along the shoreline where flood waters impacted recovery efforts and Sandy’s winds caused new outages as late as Tuesday afternoon.
“The difference is we had a lot more flooding than we did last year,” said Michael West, spokesman for New Haven’s United Illuminating.
UI struggled to get power restored after the initial wave of outages started on Sunday night. At its peak, UI had more than 150,000 of its 320,150 customers without electricity. The company had whittled the outage figure down to 135,596 by 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Connecticut Light & Power had better luck restoring power, particularly along non-coastal areas. CL&P had restored 320,000 of its customers by 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, but the utility still had 363,915 ratepayers without electricity.
“The storm didn’t completely leave our area … until late Tuesday,” CL&P spokesman Frank Poirot said. “This wasn’t a six- or eight-hour storm.”
CL&P says it had more than 1,000 line workers on the restoration efforts while UI claims 800. Utilities from surrounding states that are completing their restoration efforts are sending more crews into Connecticut, Poirot said. The utilities will have an estimate for restorations by Thursday morning followed later by a more detailed town-by-town restoration plan.
“We understand how hard it is to be without power for our customers, and we are working as quickly and as safely as possible to restore power,” Poirot said.
Connecticut’s seven smaller municipal utilities had faster restoration times. Norwich Public Utilities, for example, had 149 customers without power as of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and expected full restoration by day’s end.
Malloy is focusing his Sandy damage tour along the southern half of the state. On Wednesday, he is due to visit Stonington, New London, Westbrook, Clinton, Madison, and Guilford before returning to Hartford for a State Emergency Operations Center briefing in the afternoon.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, meantime, will tour damage sites in Trumbull, Fairfield, Milford and West Haven.
The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority is offering extended hours at its transfer stations for its 68 member municipalities to dispose of the storm’s trash. The transfer stations are not open to businesses or residents.
