Last night, Eversource said:
- Over 1,000 crews have been deployed, with “hundreds more” arriving.
- A list of estimated restoration projects will be available today on the Eversource.com website.
- Some customers may lose power as a necessary step for crews to make repairs safely for others.
- Customers without power may have equipment damage, like meter boxes or the pipe and wire running from the meter box to the home. That damage may require an electrician or contractor to repair. Eversource will let customers know if such repairs are necessary,
6:15 a.m. today: Half of the dozen or so utility trucks parked near the police station, on Jesup Road. A few minutes later, crews began arriving. On we go! (Photo/Peter Nussbaum)
Meanwhile, yesterday the Department of Public Works led an effort — assisted by Eversource line crews and Knapp tree service — to clear and open a number of through roads and side streets. They include Sterling Drive, Buena Vista and Compo Hill; Minute Man Hill; Compo Parkway; South Compo at Narrow Rocks; Rocky Ridge Road (an enormous effort, and site of a visit by an entourage with Governor Ned Lamont, Senator Richard Blumenthal and 1st Selectman Jim Marpe; Stoneboat Rd,, and Quarter Mile Road.
Today they’ll work on Crooked Mike and the northwest corner of town, then the Sturges Highway neighborhood.
The goal is to open all remaining no access/dead end-type streets by sunset tonight.
Workers yesterday at Stoneboat Road. (Photo/C. Swan)
“06880” has learned — but cannot confirm — that one National Guard unit is headed to Westport today, lending physical (and moral) support. Another may be deployed to Weston.
Westporters are angry — and getting angrier — at Eversource.
But its workers are not its management. Utility crews — and those from mutual aid companies — are doing very dangerous work, for long hours (sometimes double shifts).
Here’s an important message from JD Dworkow:
“I spoke to some of them. They’re up here from South Carolina. Can we remind some of our fellow citizens to be nice to them? Offer them cold water and praise? Not complain?”
Preach!
Wakeman Town Farm’s farm stand is open today, until 1 p.m. They say:
“It’s tomato time, with the season’s best variety of everyone’s favorite tomatoes, plus a rainbow of Farm flowers. Our farmer and volunteers have worked hard to bring you the best organic produce grown right here at 134 Cross Highway. Stop by for veggies, our own honey from Wakeman’s honeybees, and WTF logowear, including our popular masks, gaiters and WTF market totes.”
Manna Toast has a ton of food they’d prepared for the week.
“Hurricane Meal Boxes” can be ordered by 3 p.m., then picked up at their Hub Kitchen (across from the Post Road drive-thru Starbucks) between 4 and 5 p.m. today.
The menu includes toast boards, salads, soups, sides and desserts. Power outage tip: You can briefly grill your sourdough slices to achieve toasty goodness.
Call 203-628-4677 or email info@manntoast.com. Click here for the website.
The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado did strike Westport on Tuesday, as part of Isaias’ storm system.
Confirmation came in large part thanks to Scott Pecoriello. He’s the 2015 Staples High School graduate, now a full time meteorologist, who is as spot-on as any forecaster anywhere.
He tells “06880”:
“Tornado confirmed! EF1 with winds up to 105 mph. I had a conversation with the NWS in NY yesterday. They surveyed the damage remotely using a combo of radar, my video, and reports from EMS in Westport.
“Originally my company, Weather Optics (which specializes in impact forecasts for highly disruptive weather events like this one) knew the tornado threat was high, but I was still somehow shocked I was there at the exact location and exact time it formed.
“Another tidbit: This was the first time a tornado hit the state of Connecticut from a tropical system.”
Scott Pecoriello took this photo at Compo Beach on Tuesday, which the National Weather Service used to confirm a tornado.
“06880” has posted tons of Isaias-related photos (see above). Here’s a “greatest hits” video, courtesy of Cabry Lueker:
And yes, work continues around town. Two scenes from late yesterday, on Rocky Ridge Road:
(Photos/C. Swa )
Don’t know if this will give you hope or make you jealous. But I awoke at 6 am and everything was back on after nearly four days of no electricity, no internet, no cable, and spotty cell service. It could happen to you!
After this is over, I am changing my electricity supplier to another company. I realize we’re stuck with Eversource for delivery of electricity, but we can choose other companies as suppliers. We should all lead a boycott of Eversource after this is over. Has anyone had any experience (good or bad) with switching suppliers? I’ve always been complacent and never bothered to shop around (mostly because I’m always skeptical of these electrical deals you see going around), but I’ve had enough…
Last night@ 7:46 – 9,748/77.2%
This morning@ 9:26- 9,967/78.9%
Progress????!!!!!
As noted in the story, sometimes Eversource cuts power to some customers in order to make repairs to others. Go figure.
Kudos for including the suggestion to offer the linemen coming into your neighborhoods cold water and praise. We went through Hurricane Hugo back in 1989 in coastal SC where we continue to hold our collective breaths every hurricane season. There was no greater sight once the sun came up than to see utility trucks coming to our aid from all over the country…it’s quite possible one of the guys working in CT right now was on the receiving end when the SC coast was devastated all those years ago…please hand him a bottled water for me. Be safe!
Totally agree. These guys are just workers looking to help us out. They didn’t cause this mess. Taking out our frustration on the helpers is counter-productive. They’re working long hours in the scorching heat.
All dead end roads access by tonight? From your lips… I’m not even thinking about power, we have four houses on hazelnut road that can’t get in and out because of a tree, and we haven’t even had a whiff of a drive-by from anyone official. As Pink Floyd would say, is there anybody out there??
You are unfortunately among the 1%. Go figure.
Grateful for the Linemen doing the dangerous work and thanked them every time I saw them. Happy to get my power back Thursday at 9:30 pm, and consider myself very lucky!
But……what I really want to know is why do we keep repairing the same problems over and over again decade after decade? Tell me I don’t understand or got this wrong but It seems to me instead of spending money to trim trees, remove trees, replace poles, pay for overtime to do these things why haven’t the utility companies spent the money to put everything underground instead? Yes it costs money but it’s being spent repairing the same problems over & over again. If that money had been spent putting wires underground little by little for the last 5 decades we might not be talking about this today. The utilities keep asking for needed rate increases on a regular basis. Seems to me If there had been a small surcharge/assessment like sewer lines etc. for the last 25 years we wouldn’t have many of these issues. What I don’t see is leadership, what I do see is CEO’s getting paid 10’s of millions of dollars. I hear the answer to all questions is “follow the money”. I also heard that insanity is doing the same thing over & over again and expecting different results.
Hope everyone remains safe and healthy in his year of the crisis on top of the crises…..and don’t forget to vote…for real leadership.
Over this past week, I’ve chatted with many people in quick conversation.
Where are you from and how did you fair through the storm with power?
The New Canaan residents I chatted with said the underground transformers failed and try was smoke coming out of them.
The underground IS NOT a great solution either especially with our high water table.
Norwalk used to have underground power and telephone communication transformers throughout the city.
They kept getting damaged by water and other stuff, circuits fired power and communication would go down.
So back in the ’90s, CL & P (Connecticut Light and Power) now Eversource, REMOVED all the underground transformers and put them topside. The issue solved especially along the US RT 1 corridor along with other major arteries.
It works (for the most part) for NYC (Con Edison) because it’s all flat and the streets are form a grid work.
I’ll try to make my point again more specifically. WIRES & TREES need to be separated. All other equipment needs easy access for repairs maintenance and updating and doesn’t necessarily need to be underground. You are not correct about NYC.( ex. from Canel street down you are below water, hence the name)
Where is Eversource CEO Jim Judge ? See his stock price below – at an all time high. In March he told shareholders, “this is our best year ever”. 3 months ago he was awarded a $3m bonus, taking his annual comp close to $20MM.
Heading into this weekend 30% of his customers are still with out power.
Mark, this has been my exact thought for years. I am glad you are bringing it up.
As to changing suppliers, I have done so for years. It is not difficult; there is a site which has all the suppliers and you can put in your own filters to get individualized results.
https://www.energizect.com/compare-energy-suppliers/
Thank you for providing the supplier info! This is pretty informative. Looks like Eversource’s supplier prices are actually quite competitive…. I’m guessing the price gouging is more on the distribution side of things, where they have their monopoly. I’d look into solar panels but there are too many damn trees! 🙂
Changing suppliers doesn’t help. You still have the same infrastructure with the same problems. Everything needs to go underground for there to be any effective change. We need leadership, political and corporate at the utility.
Just a thought in “just sayin’” category……While it’s encouraging to finally see some movement on the repair/restoration front, I saw something this morning that kind of surprised/shocked me. While driving on Compo Road South near Longshore, I saw the WPD Tesla sitting, with radar gun in hand, trying to catch speeders. I’m not trying to downplay the need to keep speeding from happening, but with all that’s going on right now, it really surprised me to see that this was a priority for use of resource…..
That funnel cloud pic is incredible. Thanks!
I will keep pressing this; Post Road being down for so long is a mistake. Distant homes I can understand more. They will need to redesign the grid so that they can power up Post Road way before they clear trees way north in town.
In Darien I drove by a crew today and gave them a thumbs up (they were busy planning their next fix). Glad to see so many trucks are finally working. We will be up soon.
Someone I know is going to speak to the Westport police chief (after the police chief speaks to Eversource). I will report here if I hear anything new.
Eversource? A better name now might be Neversource!
14 trucks were sitting at Branchville train station all day waiting to be dispatched with instructions, why?
While 58% of our town has no power, here is the Eversource response at 9:30 tonightThought you would appreciate.