United Illuminating announced at 6:20 a.m. on Thursday morning that its projection for restoring 95 percent of customers without power was midnight on Monday, Nov. 5.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said at Wednesday's news briefing that he would hold UI and CL&P — the state's largest power company — accountable for meeting their projections.
At the height of the outages from Hurricane Sandy, more than 200,000 UI customers lost power. About 108,000 electric customers are still without it on Thursday morning.
As of 7:51 a.m. today, Nov. 1, there are 12,146 customers in Fairfield still without power—that's 55.5% of the town. UI estimates that 99.95% of Southport is also powerless.
“We are proceeding full force to restore power to our customers as quickly and safely as possible,” said James P. Torgerson, chief executive officer of UIL Holdings. “Our damage assessment, safety inspection and road clearing crews have been working around the clock to pave the way for line and service crews to restore power.
"Restoration crews already have restored electric service to approximately 92,340 customers who lost power during the storm. While damage assessment will continue, we are confident that we have gathered enough information to effectively allocate our resources where they are needed most to restore power.”
Anthony J. Vallillo, UI president and chief operating officer, said:
“We fully understand that the loss of electricity seriously disrupts people’s lives, and we have tapped into every resource at our disposal to restore electric service to all of our customers safely and as quickly as possible. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, one of the most powerful storms to ever hit our region.”
UI also issued these reminders:
- Assume downed, damaged or dangling power lines are live and dangerous.
- Avoid anything in which these power lines might be in contact, such as trees or fences.
- Keep children and pets indoors and away from danger.
- Be mindful of the smell of natural gas.
