Anyone still not have power?

[o3jeff]

Where is your office? I grew up in manchester

On the 384 side of town. Grandview St, off of Porter.

 

[Nick]

I grew up on the opposite side of town next to Vernon

 

[Madroch]

Still no power... seems like those of us in the Farmington Valley (Avon, Simsbury, Farmington) and north central ct are last in line. All towns stil have over 85% without power-- and it seems only commercial districts and the few lucky folks surrounding them have power. My neighborhood is still a mess- no signs of clean up yet. While nights have not been as cold, and days warmer, house is getting a couple of degrees colder each day. 44 or so this am.

 

[MR. evil]

Just got power back

 

[hammer]

Got power back earlier this afternoon.

 

[Glenn]

My sister inlaw and family are still without power in South Windsor. They say it'll be on by the weekend.

 

[mondeo]

Still no power. Lack of heat was messing with the quality of my sleep, so I'm working from VT today.

There'll be a long lunch.

 

[Madroch]

Heard they were sending the Guard into the Farmington Valley here in CT. Still haven't seen a single CL&P crew, or the Guard. Took a little tour of the neighborhood yesterday and amazed at how it still looks like a war zone almost a week later--- many local roads still impassable, trees and wires, etc. On the positive-- commercial seems good-- gas stations, grocery stores and package stores-- the necessecities are covered.

 

[Warp Daddy]

Boy that is a difficult situation to be out that long , i feel badly for all afffected . Sure hope all get the juice back on today or tomorrow.

.

My grandkids and daughter ( a teacher) have been out of school all week . Kids are getting antsy but at least they have power and wre only out overnitght the first nite but the rest of their surrounding area ( 495 NW of Boston) is still hurting .

 

[skijay]

No power yet at the office in Windsor, CT. Still working from home. I have electricity only because of a senior housing complex / assisted living that the line I'm connected to serves. I got power back on Monday night. The street that starts about 500 feet from my house is still untouched with trees and lines down.

I do not have cable for internet - line dropped from pole to house. Do you believe when I called to report it they actually did not comprehend this? They wanted me to clean my cookies on my laptop to see if it resolves the problem. I love outsourcing to a foreign country that English is a language somewhere down on the list.

 

[drjeff]

Heard they were sending the Guard into the Farmington Valley here in CT. Still haven't seen a single CL&P crew, or the Guard. Took a little tour of the neighborhood yesterday and amazed at how it still looks like a war zone almost a week later--- many local roads still impassable, trees and wires, etc. On the positive-- commercial seems good-- gas stations, grocery stores and package stores-- the necessecities are covered.

The really scary thing is in the area roughly North of I-84 and about 10 miles either side of I-91 is that how your street looks is more the norm than the anomoly! I was just constantly in amazement at the tree damage in that area when I left my relatively unscathed world of Eastern CT and went over to Southington for some meetings. It almost reminded me of what the swath of Massachusetts that the tornado tore through back in June looked like, the only difference was that the direction that the trees fell with this storm wasn't in as consistant a direction as you see with tornado damage

 

[bvibert]

There's a LOT of damage. It's not surprise for me to hear that some locations haven't been touched yet.

IMHO people are being too hard on CL&P, it's a monumental task that they're facing. On one section of route 6 that I travel to go to work there was at least one branch down on the lines spanning between each set of poles. And that was just on one mile long section of road. It's a pretty major route and it took them several days to make it passable in more than one lane.

 

[WJenness]

There's a LOT of damage. It's not surprise for me to hear that some locations haven't been touched yet.

IMHO people are being too hard on CL&P, it's a monumental task that they're facing. On one section of route 6 that I travel to go to work there was at least one branch down on the lines spanning between each set of poles. And that was just on one mile long section of road. It's a pretty major route and it took them several days to make it passable in more than one lane.

I agree.

During times like this, it seems like the worst of some people comes out where all they say is 'No one is helping ME." without realizing that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the same (if not worse) situation, and OF COURSE the utilities want to get you back up and running as quickly as possible... There's just a LOT to do out there.

-w

 

[drjeff]

There's a LOT of damage. It's not surprise for me to hear that some locations haven't been touched yet.

IMHO people are being too hard on CL&P, it's a monumental task that they're facing. On one section of route 6 that I travel to go to work there was at least one branch down on the lines spanning between each set of poles. And that was just on one mile long section of road. It's a pretty major route and it took them several days to make it passable in more than one lane.

Agreed! I realize that there's a certain amount of frustration going on. But to consider that this storm caused close to 1 million people between all the power companies in CT alone to loose power, and the vast majority of the cause of the power loss is directly attributable to trees coming down on the power lines and poles. Just the tree clearing effort alone in massive, and as someone who has used a chainsaw just for a few small/medium trees every now and then in my own yard, clearing away a tree isn't a quick process most of the time, and unless you also have some type of heavy equipment to help lift (sometimes even before you finish the chainsaw work) and clear the tree debris, it's not easy work. And in many cases all that has to be done BEFORE the line crews can get in, asses if the line can be restring from the poles or if new line needs to be run.

I think the perfect example of how much more difficult this task has been, especially compared to Irene is what has happened in CT to the "other" main power company, UI. On Sunday they were saying that the expected that all their customers would have power restored by Monday evening. Most were. However, the last of their customers finally had their power restored yesterday (Thursday).

Just like many ski area owners have realized over these last few years, if you cut down selective trees in certain areas, customers are happy and love the results!! (I had to try and get some type of ski reference into this thread, even if it was a weak attempt! :lol: ) Maybe the power companies and the State should see the same light!

 

[o3jeff]

Have power back at work, putting in my 4 hours for the week.

 

[hammer]

I agree.

During times like this, it seems like the worst of some people comes out where all they say is 'No one is helping ME." without realizing that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the same (if not worse) situation, and OF COURSE the utilities want to get you back up and running as quickly as possible... There's just a LOT to do out there.

-w

On a town message board I did ask about power status for my street...but I hated doing it because I didn't want it to sound like all I cared about was my situation.

I don't know about the specifics of how the crews have worked, but from what I have seen the damage in the Lowell area was extensive, and I do believe that the crews worked as quickly as they could to get our power back on.

When the snow settles and the tree debris is cleared, however, I do think that there are questions that need to be answered/addressed regarding the fragile state of our power distribution system. We need to have towns seriously look into burying lines and trees near lines need to be trimmed on a more frequent basis...regardless of whether the property owners want it done or not...

 

[bvibert]

I'm not trying to minimize people's frustrations. It's a tough situation all around. I just think it's unfair to try to place all the blame on CL&P.

I understand that some of the transmission lines were damaged in the storm. Maybe some of the crews have been busy repairing the backbone that serves the communities that haven't seen much attention? It doesn't make much sense to fix the lines going to the houses if there's nothing to feed them anyway.

 

[WJenness]

When the snow settles and the tree debris is cleared, however, I do think that there are questions that need to be answered/addressed regarding the fragile state of our power distribution system. We need to have towns seriously look into burying lines and trees near lines need to be trimmed on a more frequent basis...regardless of whether the property owners want it done or not...

Agreed.

With the 'economy' being in the state it has been in the past few years, a lot of that low to medium level maintenance on trees / lines has gotten deferred, and when you don't have big storms come through, it's not a big deal... but then when something like this happens... well, this is the result...

Also, my reaction to people complaining about their situation is mainly a result to some folks I've seen on the news / posting online calling for everyone who works for the power companies to be fired, etc... Not you... :beer:

-w

 

[2knees]

I'm not trying to minimize people's frustrations. It's a tough situation all around. I just think it's unfair to try to place all the blame on CL&P.

sorry but i couldnt disagree more with this statement. A few days, yes, people need to get a grip but having entire towns untouched 7 days after this started is downright criminal. Why is it taking so long? Because CL and P basically eliminated their preventive maintenance routines, did not pay the outside contractors for Irene's work, which is why Mass has 1400 out of state workers 3 days ago and we had something like 8 crews. Also, they have cut their overall staff in the last 10 years down to a skeleton crew all the while charging CT users the highest electricity rates outside of Hawaii.

Yeah, but don't blame them, they're the good guys.

sorry brian, but this mentality touches a nerve with me. What the F^&* are we paying for?????

 

[Greg]

sorry but i couldnt disagree more with this statement. A few days, yes, people need to get a grip but having entire towns untouched 7 days after this started is downright criminal. Why is it taking so long? Because CL and P basically eliminated their preventive maintenance routines, did not pay the outside contractors for Irene's work, which is why Mass has 1400 out of state workers 3 days ago and we had something like 8 crews. Also, they have cut their overall staff in the last 10 years down to a skeleton crew all the while charging CT users the highest electricity rates outside of Hawaii.

Yeah, but don't blame them, they're the good guys.

sorry brian, but this mentality touches a nerve with me. What the F^&* are we paying for?????

I got power back yesterday morning. The first thing I did Sunday morning was put food from my fridge outside in a cooler to preserve what I had. I luckily found a semi-open grocery store and stocked up on canned goods and water. We eventually found a gas station Sunday afternoon with a manageable line so I filled up both cars as well as a 5 gallon can. Then I spent the rest of the day calling several places in southern CT (which wasn't hit as hard) looking for a generator.

Got a tip early Monday morning of a delivery of 70 to the Bridgeport Home Depot. Went down there and within an hour was walking out with one. A quick trip to an electrical supply store, and I had the thing hooked up by 2 pm Monday. BTW, 30 amp twist-lock plugged into the generator, wired with 10-4 wire to a typical 3-pole drier plug. Flip the main breaker off, flip the drier circuit on, and you get 30 amp service to your panel. Safe? Probably, if you manage your power consumption carefully. Legal? No way, but you do what you gotta do. We had heat and running hot water. What was a pretty uncomfortable situation became just a minor inconvenience. Also, the insurance company is issuing a $500 check, chalked up to "emergency living expense". It's covering roughly half of the generator investment.

The lesson I learned was the only person you can rely on during a situation like this is yourself and to be proactive about things. Sitting around waiting to be "rescued", and then complaining about it when it takes too long is foolish. There's often a lot of comments about media hype when storms like this are coming. This time it came to pass, so you just never know. I know personally, I was much more prepared for Irene, which was nothing, than this storm. When I woke up to 19" of heavy snow on Sunday, I knew it was time to act quickly.

Lots of chatter about CL&P's short-comings here, placing the blame on management (always the easy target), etc. They lose money when your house is dark so they want power restored to your home as quickly as you do. The fact is operationally they are probably still reeling from Irene which was only two months ago. Maybe some bad upper level decision making? Probably, but I'm sure they've been moving as quickly as possible. The bottom line is during something like this, you have to take matters into your own hands and don't waste time and energy assigning blame.