Thousands Without Power a Day After Strong Storms and Wind

November 18, 2020

HARTFORD, Conn. — Thousands of Connecticut residents remained without power Monday, a day after strong storms moved through the state.

Eversource, the state’s largest electric utility, reported that more than 10,000 customers remained offline at 2 p.m. and 5,700 were still without power at 6 p.m. The company said it had restored power to more than 20,000 others overnight.

United Illuminating, which had reported just under 5,000 outages on Sunday, had just 27 customers still without electricity Monday evening.

Attorney General William Tong said Eversource experienced problems with its automated outage reporting system similar to those that occurred during Tropical Storm Isaias, which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people in August.

“The Eversource automated outage reporting system has been riddled with errors and dysfunction since it was first developed,” he said in a statement. “This is a ratepayer funded system, and ratepayers deserve a system that works.”

Eversource said the issues related to the outage reporting system had been resolved.

Sunday’s storms, which included rain and high winds, caused school delays and minor damage across the state, including in New Haven where the holiday tree on the city green was toppled.

Officials said some of the trees limbs were broken and they were evaluating the situation Monday to determine if the tree could be put back up.

“It’s sad. It’s really sad.” Jennifer Reed, of New Haven, told WTNH-TV “It kind of reminds me of 2020 and it’s like on its side and so we have to pick ourselves back up. I’m surprised that the wind was that strong. I didn’t realize that just how powerful it was.”