Governor, Gubernatorial Candidates react to I-Team investigation into Eversource response

(WFSB) - For more than two days, the I-Team has been asking how many crews Eversource had in place, ready to respond after the storms rolled in. They still haven’t given an answer. Note: An hour after this story aired, Eversource responded, their response is below, at the end of the article.

We asked the Governor and his challengers how they think Eversource did.

Eversource says it was in the dark about how powerful Saturday’s storm, which left more than 180,000 of its customers without power, would be.

Strong winds toppled trees and power lines Saturday night. Torrington and Harwinton were two of the hardest hit areas.

Harwinton’s first selectman says they didn’t see Eversource crews on the ground until two days later.

Governor Ned Lamont says the state has been working with Eversource to improve, following issues with Eversource’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020.

“They’ve been doing a little bit better, I think, of late. But look, what I saw in Harwinton was not good, and we’ve got to make sure that those people get their power up and make sure those roads are cleared,” says Governor Lamont.

It’s one issue Lamont’s challengers, Democrat Josh Elliott and Republican Ryan Fazio, both agree on.

“It appears not. And the response to be fully adequate took days, really. It seemed like it was at least 48 or 36 hours before substantial crews got on the ground in affected areas,” says Senator Ryan Fazio.

“I mean, you can just see by the fact that it’s taken four days already to get people back online, the answer is no,” says Representative Josh Elliott.

Our investigation found Eversource blamed their forecast. We got a copy of that forecast from their forecasters at UCONN. The UCONN Outage Prediction Model is one of the vendors they used (Eversource did not respond when we asked who else they use). Note: An hour after this story aired, Eversource responded - their response is below, at the end of the article.

The forecast, which was 30 hours old, said Southwest Connecticut would be hit hardest, and it didn’t mention wind speeds. It was the last communication between UConn and Eversource.

We asked Eversource if that’s because they were talking to other forecasters. At the time this story aired, Eversource had not responded. Note: An hour after this story aired, Eversource responded - their response is below, their response is below, at the end of the article.

We asked lawmakers if there needs to be more communication.

Governor Ned Lamont said, “I think so. I can’t micromanage, but I think so.”

Senator Fazio said, “If they weren’t looking at forecasts up to the hour or the minute before it hit, then that is wholly inadequate and explains partially why they were slow to respond.”

Representative Elliott said, “there needs to be way more communication. The takeaway that I have from this is that we are going to see more and more of these storms. This is not a one-off.”

The Governor says they will be doing a debrief in the next couple weeks with all involved, including the utilities.

We asked how lawmakers feel Eversource can do better in the future.

Senator Fazio says there’s a few things to look at.

“Whether they’re vetting the weather reports to the minute, to the hour, as you’ve discovered, whether they have adequate crews on standby, whether when crews are deployed, they’re being deployed to the correct areas. And when they are deployed, whether they’re having adequate communication with management and bureaucracy internal to the utility so that they can work as fast as possible,” says Fazio.

Governor Lamont and Representative Elliott have other ideas.

“We have to do two things. We have to, A, underground way more wires so that we’re more resilient. And B, we have to have a public power option. Because in places like Wallingford, they go out of service so irregularly because their people are there on staff and ready to go. They don’t have to bring them in from out of state,” says Representative Elliott.

Governor Lamont says, “Look, the thing is, they used to have a big staff in-state, always on, and now they have more contract labor. They move between states depending on where the need is. That gets a little more complicated.”

But the Governor says, bottom line, “You know, plan for the worst. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Sometimes they do the opposite.”

In emails I requested and received from PURA, Eversource told officials there that 702 crews are currently out in the field.

230 crews, about 33% are Eversource, the rest are contractor crews or what’s known as the response specialist line.

We have requested interviews with Eversource multiple times, we have not gotten a reply. An hour after this story aired, Eversource responded saying no one was available, this week or next week. We had asked to sit down with higher-ups.

EVERSOURCE FULL RESPONSE:

The I-Team had asked whether Eversource uses just UCONN for forecasting. The I-Team found Eversource uses UConn, specifically the UConn outage prediction model, for help forecasting where outages will most likely happen. The I-Team spoke with UCONN on Tuesday.

Eversource responded Wednesday, saying "We do not rely on UCONN for weather forecasts. We have several sources of weather forecasts for storm events, including commercial and public resources. All of the forecasts were in line with the same public information customers have access to through local news sources and the apps on their phones that they rely on for weather forecasting. As previously mentioned, none of the weather services predicted widespread wind gusts which exceeded 70MPH, nor did they predict the microbursts which ultimately led to tens of thousands of unexpected customer outages. We have access to strong and detailed tools, but this was one of those unique, devastating, severe summer events which led to widespread damage across a swath of the Northeast from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and as far west as Michigan. Because of our operational expertise, we were able to secure the necessary crews to get the power back on safely for nearly 200,000 customers. Among the weather services we use, we are provided with rolling 14-day “lookaheads” for our planning purposes. Additionally, we get forecast information from the National Weather Service and CT DEMHS."

Eversource told the I-Team they, “do not have a fulltime meteorologist on staff.”

One thing the I-Team found, was that the last forecast/outage prediction model UCONN sent to Eversource was 30 hours before the storm, and there was no communication after that. When asked Eversource said, 

“UCONN only reruns the model when circumstances change. If the weather forecast did not change in the 24 hours prior to the event, the model does not need to be updated. We don’t run the model over and over on the same forecast. Also, our understanding is that the model takes 12-24 hours to run. There would be no purpose in running it again right after we received it, without a change in circumstances.”

When asked how many crews were in place before the storm, Eversource said, “On July 4^th, we had our normal complement of in-house crews either working or on-call, including our Response Specialists who were working extended hours due to the heat wave, right through the holiday. We had approximately 200 resources and were prepared for 500-600 events. In the end, over 3,000 damage locations occurred."