Gone but hardly forgotten, Tropical Storm Isaias has shone a light ”“ metaphorically, of course, since most of us are still in the dark ”“ on the preparedness efforts of utilities Eversource and United Illuminating ”¦ or lack thereof.
While a public utility”™s failure to immediately make the necessary repairs and restorations can perhaps be unfairly criticized, that does not appear to be the case here. Eversource in particular seems to have severely underestimated what Isaias”™ potential for damage was, with the result that some 1 million Connecticut customers were originally left without power; that figure has since dropped to a hardly impressive 450,000 or so this morning.
The reviews for that performance are still coming in ”“ and what raves they are:
- “Wholly inadequate!” ”“ Gov. Ned Lamont, on his way to ordering the state”™s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) to investigate the situation and dangling the possibility of fines and penalties.
- “Must be held accountable!” ”“ Attorney General William Tong, so wowed that he explained the penalties could include “disallowing storm cost recovery and, in a future rate case, reducing the utility”™s authorized return on equity.”
- “Bureaucratic nonsense ”¦. Abysmal!” ”“ Stamford Mayor David Martin
- “Beyond unacceptable!” ”“ State Sens. Len Fasano and Paul Formica, the latter of whom is the ranking member of the Energy & Technology Committee.
You know you”™ve really hit the wrong nail on the wrong head when the result has state Democrats and Republicans in utter agreement.
It should be noted that nobody complains about their utility service until it goes away. No sane person would write to Eversource something like, “It”™s been almost three months since the lights went out! Kudos to you!”
But surely Eversource holds a special place in most everyone”™s hearts right now. The company was quick to point out that, hey, these things happen: We thought there”™d be ”“ maybe ”“ 380,000 outages, and we got a million. Oh, and we”™re not even going to guess how long it”™ll take us to fix it. But it”™ll almost definitely be sometime this month. Cool?
Well, no ”“ not cool (especially when it”™s 90 degrees outside, with a heat index of 125 indoors). But it”™s not like we haven”™t been down this sticky road before. As Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton noted, Eversource was known as Northeast Utilities until 2015, when it emerged from one of the mergers that create these mega-monstrosities with its risible new moniker.
Boughton ”“ who implied the name change was due to the firm”™s poor performance “after the last fiasco” ”“ refers to the company as “Neversource.” I can”™t decide between that one and “Ever-a-Source-of-Frustration.”
At any rate, where is James J. Judge, Eversource”™s chairman, president and CEO, in all of this? Triple-J has been noticeably quiet ”“ busy rehanging downed circuit lines in Cos Cob, perhaps?
Although he met with Lamont on Wednesday, he decided against appearing before the press afterward. Instead, he sent Craig Hallstrom, the utility”™s president, Regional Electric Operations, Connecticut and Massachusetts, out to explain that ”“ as best as Fox 61 could tell ”“ “There”™s no utility in the country that would staff to handle this type of magnitude. Several years, you”™ll see our reliability has actually increased. Last year being the best year ever for Connecticut.”
Feeling better yet?
Meanwhile, “Judge not, lest ye be” Judge took over from the immortal Tom May in 2017, and thus oversaw Eversource”™s memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons response to the May 2018 macroburst. Then-Gov. Dan Malloy rattled a few sabers then, too.
Big Jim, incidentally, made $19.8 million last year as Eversource honcho, a truly cool 33% increase from 2018. With that kind of cheddar, you send out the flunkies to deal with the press and the public.
So who really has the power here? The state government, the Connecticut citizenry (please hold your laughter) or Eversource?
This is a company, mind you, that recently tried to ram an out-of-left-field rate hike down its customers”™ throats until PURA threw a penalty flag. It does, however, make one wonder if that extra income had been given the green light, then it could have been used for Eversource to be better prepared for tropical storms and ”¦
Wait, $19.8 million?
Better get more gas for that generator. It”™s going to be a long few days ”¦ or so.
