Additional Crews Helping CL&P’s Restoration Effort

Nov. 9, 2012
An army of reinforcements continues to grow today in an all-out effort to restore power to the remaining CL&P customers still without power as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

An army of reinforcements continues to grow today in an all-out effort to restore power to the remaining CL&P customers still without power as a result of Hurricane Sandy. The total number of storm responders is now more than 6,000, with 500 line workers joining the effort today from Northeast Utilities (NU) sister companies NSTAR, Public Service of New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts Electric (WMECo), along with our Canadian partner Hydro Québec. In all, workers have come from 16 states and four Canadian provinces.

Since the height of the storm Monday, October 29, CL&P and mutual aid crews have restored power to more than 600,000 customers, and the company continues to expect that the vast majority of its customers will have power restored by Tuesday, November 6. As of November 4, Power had been restored to more than 785,000 CL&P customers and 97 percent of CL&P customers now have power. All efforts are now focused on the approximately 43,000 customers who remain without power.

“Today’s efforts have been concentrated in the communities hardest hit by Sandy’s high winds and flooding,” said Bill Quinlan, CL&P Senior Vice President of Emergency Preparedness. “Many large area outages have been restored, and crews are diligently working to restore all customers. In some areas, this effort requires that entire sections of the electric distribution system be rebuilt from scratch.”

With Election Day quickly approaching, CL&P continues to closely coordinate with the Secretary of the State's office to restore power to polling places.

“We continue to make great progress, and we are confident that this integrated and strategic approach to mobilizing thousands of skilled line and field workers will enable us to accelerate the effort to restore power to all of our customers,” said Bill Quinlan, CL&P Senior Vice President of Emergency Preparedness. “We appreciate the patience and support of our communities as we continue to focus on full-scale restoration of large blocks of customers as well as critical customers identified by town officials.”

While large trees still block roads in some of the hardest hit areas, workers have made significant progress in clearing thousands of roads across the state and restoring power to the majority of critical facilities. Additional resources are being deployed to the most severely damaged areas, where entire sections of the electric system require rebuilding.

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of T&D World, create an account today!