The Attorney General asked utility regulators to investigate Connecticut Light & Power Company’s preparedness and response to the winter storm that left more than 831,000 CL&P customers without power and they have agreed.
George Jepsen filed a formal request with the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority on Nov. 10 after the October nor'easter. The response came on Tuesday.
“The regulators agreed today (Tuesday) to add an independent management audit to the scope of their review of CL&P’s preparedness for and response to major outage events. I look forward to working through the PURA process to ensure that the audit is independent, broad and thorough,” Jepsen said in a statement.
On Sept. 22, the authority began to look into how CL&P and the United Illuminating Co.’s responded to Tropical Storm Irene, as well as how telecommunications, natural gas and water public service companies responded after extended outages in August.
Jepsen called for this investigation to include the utility companies response to the October storm, which caused even more damage to the electric power transmission and distribution system.
“I have received numerous complaints from affected citizens, many of whom are still waiting for their power to be restored,” Jepsen said on Thursday. “Reliable electric service is a matter of public health and safety, and Connecticut’s citizens deserve to know that the utilities and the State are doing everything possible to provide electric service as soon as possible.”
Among the issues Jepsen asked regulators to address are CL&P’s preparations for the magnitude of the storm, its advance reservation and payment procedures for out-of-state work crews and the effectiveness of its response to the damage on the ground.
