(BERLIN, Conn. (November 8, 2012) – Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast and left millions of electric customers without power. Now that all CL&P customers with fixable outages from Hurricane Sandy have been restored, workers are heading to New York to support the restoration of tens-of-thousands of customers who are still without power more than a week after the epic storm swept through.
“Thousands of workers from across the country came to Connecticut to help us restore power to our customers, and now we’re ready to lend a hand and help other utilities in their time of need,” said Bill Herdegen, CL&P President and Chief Operating Officer. “We’ve seen the devastation of this storm and fully understand the labor and logistical support needed to complete restoration.”
Approximately 60 CL&P employees, including line workers, mechanics, supervisors, and safety professionals, will join the massive restoration effort in New York and possibly move on to assist in New Jersey. The crews will stay on with their neighbor utilities for as long as needed, and will be joining others from Northeast Utilities, as well as 200 line workers from Hydro Quebec.
With hotel and housing options extremely scarce in New York, CL&P crews will continue to be based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has been working in partnership with Carl Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer of Building and Land Technology (BLT), the developers of Stamford’s Harbor Point, to turn a BLT apartment complex into hotel-style housing for crews.
“We greatly appreciate the generosity and support for our crews shown by Mr. Kuehner and many others during this restoration process,” Herdegen added.
While significant resources are headed to assist others in need, ample crews remain in Connecticut to restore the approximately 500 customers affected by Wednesday night’s Nor’easter and any new outages. CL&P also continues working closely with customers whose homes or businesses were so badly damaged by Sandy that electric service could not be restored.