Power Restoration Nowhere Near 99% by Sunday at Midnight

Although CL&P had estimated that power would be restored by midnight to 99 percent of its 10,107 households in Simsbury, the number was revised drastically downward to 71.1 percent late Sunday night.

Simsbury was one of the towns hardest hit by a rare October snowstorm that knocked out power to almost 1 million CL&P customers on Oct. 29. CL&P initially vowed to restore power to 99% of customers in all of the towns it serves by Sunday at midnight, but backed off the estimate for some towns.

In a news conference Sunday afternoon, CL&P Chief Operating Officer Jeff Butler apologized for not meeting the company’s “aggressive, self-imposed” deadline and said it will meet its final date of Wednesday.

“We still believe strongly that we will achieve 100 percent restoration by Wednesday evening,” Butler said. “(Setting the deadline) was the right decision and we stand by that decision. People have been working hard for eight days now; we need to see this through and the focus remains on getting power restored as quickly as possible.”

At about 11 p.m. Sunday night, CL&P said approximately 64,000 customers were without power, the majority in the Farmington Valley and northern Tolland County. 

"We have not given up and have about 2,500 line and tree crews at work," Butler said in a news release. The company still estimated that 99 percent of Simsbury customers would get power by Monday at midnight, and 100 percent by Wednesday night.