Llodra Sharply Criticizes CL&P Storm Response

By John Voket

Sitting at her desk watching a late fall nor’easter swirl huge, heavy flakes of snow around Newtown Municipal Center, First Selectman Pat Llodra still struggles to restrain her frustration with Connecticut Light & Power.

Despite the utility’s confident statements about increased preparedness as Sandy, a hurricane wrapped in an earlier nor’easter, bore down on Connecticut October 29, Mrs Llodra said in the end it took crews the same protracted amount of time to provide substantial power restoration to Newtown and other neighboring communities.

“It took nine days for each of the two storms last fall, and it took nine days this time. No improvement,” the first selectman noted, her brow furrowing as she continued to glance out the window and back to a computer screen on her desk flashing a small number of electrical outages still facing Newtown homeowners.

When she considers CL&P’s early promises of better preparedness for Sandy, Mrs Llodra acknowledges that the utility seemed well prepared to respond to what, for some time, was in excess of 97 percent of the town without power. But as the hours and days wore on, and indications that more and more crews would be channeled into Newtown, the first selectman’s confidence quickly began to wane.

“I have to say the front end worked better,” she said of the utility’s promise to rapidly restore six critical facilities in town, including the Garner Correctional facility.

“But then they flatlined,” she said. “Where were the extra 1,000 crews they said were arriving when the areas of greatest impact were in trouble? I don’t think CL&P was telling the truth /when the utility reported] they were releasing more crews. There was no evidence of that in town.”

Mrs Llodra said she recognizes from a badly battered public relations perspective, after the double-barreled debacle of the back-to-back storms in September and October 2011, that the utility had to mount a “numbers-driven response.”

“It makes sense that they wanted to show the greatest amount of restorations every day, but I want CL&P to humanize these outages,” the first selectman said. “I believe you can still power up the masses while working on smaller clusters and individual restorations.”

She also heard about increasing incidents during twice-daily briefings during the recovery that utility crews were blaming or suggesting she and town public works officials were ultimately responsible for directing crews or deciding whose neighborhoods would get power restored first.

But that was not the case, except in instances where elderly or medically compromised residents were desperate to have their electricity turned on.

Callers Received             Misinformation

In certain cases, Mrs Llodra made frequent requests targeting those streets or individual homes. But she does not believe those requests and whatever response they generated were responsible for pulling crews off other restoration jobs that would power up significantly larger areas of homes and businesses.

The first selectman also resents that the lack of information, or misinformation, being related to customers contacting the utility call centers resulted in even angrier Newtowners contacting her office.

“CL&P [executives] don’t hear the horror stories themselves. They make town officials their front office,” Mrs Llodra said. “They are shielded from the impact of their decisions.”

As a result, the first selectman has already been in touch with Connecticut’s Consumer Counsel and is planning a return trip to the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA) to relate her experiences, along with several other officials whose Fairfield towns were hit equally hard, as they were in 2011, with seemingly similar weak response.

She will also continue formally requesting CL&P assign a permanent “strike team” to the community to essentially respond on a case-by-case basis for critical single home and cluster restorations.

Mrs Llodra said Newtown has 12 electrical circuits feeding power to the community.

“I don’t see why all the resources have to be devoted to servicing and restoring one or two of these circuits at a time,” she said. “Maybe CL&P is chasing something unachievable” in working to achieve rapid power restoration.

“But if they can’t do it, tell us,” Mrs Llodra said. “My argument is with corporate. I know this was a megastorm and maybe nobody could have been fully prepared, but I want truth telling, not excuses.”

CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross said workers assigned to restore power after Sandy will stay on the job to respond to any increased outages resulting from this week’s snowy nor’easter.

Register FEMA Claims

In related news, Deputy Land Use Director Rob Sibley, who is acting as the local Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinator, is advising anyone in town who even thinks they may have a claim for damages to register with the agency.

He will begin touring the list of registered damaged properties with agency officials in the coming days “identifying what needs to be fixed.”

Mr Sibley understands the recovery period will extend for some time, but he is encouraging even homeowners who only lost refrigerated or frozen food to contact FEMA to register for a possible claim.

“There is a possibility they could receive some reimbursement if there is a food loss,” he said. “The feds have the final say, but I understand the loss of an entire refrigerator or freezer of food is a hardship.”

He said the sooner any home or business owner files a claim, the better.

“We won’t close the claim period for months, but don’t wait,” Mr Sibley said.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy released a useful fact sheet Tuesday for Connecticut residents seeking information on how to apply for federal disaster assistance resulting from Storm Sandy.  The fact sheet provides step-by-step details on how the FEMA application process works and can be downloaded at www.ct.gov/sandy.

“Right now, one of our top priorities following Storm Sandy is to help individuals and business owners get their lives back to normal as quickly as possible,” Gov Malloy said.  “This fact sheet is a one-stop resource for residents — one that will be regularly updated with the latest information.”

The fact sheet will continue to be updated in the coming days as developments are made and additional assistance may become available.

When registering for the assistance, the governor and FEMA are encouraging residents to utilize the online registration method at www.DisasterAssistance.gov in order to expedite the registration process and avoid potential telephone hold times.