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More Power Problems Arise

Compromised transmission line leads to more outages in Farmington.

Tuesday, Nov 8, 2011 | Updated 5:07 PM EST

NBC Connecticut

Ten days after the rare October snow storm, 22,000 customers woke up without power once again on Tuesday. That number was reduced to about 11,000 by Tuesday afternoon.

In some places, such as Farmington, outages reoccurred Tuesday. In a news release on Monday night, the town of Farmington said "CL&P encountered a significant unforeseen complication in the restoration effort in Farmington. Areas that had previously been restored are now without power."

Town leaders blamed a compromised transmission line for the outages and said they were not provided with a time when it would be fixed.

Farmington, like many other towns, has been forced to change polling locations for Election Day.

As of Tuesday morning, 26 percent of Farmington was still without power. In Avon, 22 percent were still in the dark, and in Somers the number stood at 25 percent.

Gov. Dannel Malloy expressed frustration with the way Connecticut Light & Power has dealt with widespread outages.

“The fixing will be done. Those responsible will be held accountable,” Malloy said on Monday.

He said getting everyone’s power back on continues to be his focus.

“That tens of thousands of people will have gone this long without power bothers me more than any of you might know,” he said.

Malloy said he has been in touch several times with Charles Shivery, chief executive officer of Northeast Utilities, the parent company of CL&P. Malloy told him that his company’s handling of the situation has been “unacceptable.”

“It’s taken too long to get the power back on. There have been too many problems and it’s time for him to change the way his operation is being managed,” Malloy also told Shivery.

Shivery assured him that his CL&P had put a new procedure in place in which senior management will be in the Tolland and Simsbury area work centers and will be redoubling efforts in these areas so decisions are being made closer to where the problem exits.

In Simsbury, a CL&P information line has been opened to help residents receive real-time customer-specific information and power restoration estimates.

“It’s clear to me that … they failed to understand the gravity of the situation in towns that I personally had visited,” Malloy said.

Shivery told Malloy that they are “pouring crews” into the high-impacted towns to get power restored by Tuesday night and assured the governor that CL&P would meet its deadline for full restoration.

“This should have happened days ago,” Malloy said.

Simsbury residents can call the information center at 860-658-3279 to reach a CL&P rep assigned to the Simsbury Help Desk between 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. If a resident calls during open hours and receives a voice mail message, they should leave the requested contact information and the CL&P representative will call them back promptly.