CL&P Misses Mark By 40 Percent

As CL&P pushed off its self-imposed deadline for 99 percent restoration another 24 hours, the company hadn't made much progress in Farmington. At 3 a.m. the town still sat at 40 percent without electricity.

The goal was 99 percent with power by Sunday at midnight. Then the mysterious shift to 11:45 p.m., then 95 percent by Sunday, with another 5 percent left until Monday. And now, CL&P is promising power to 99 percent by Tuesday midnight and for everyone 24 hours later.

Farmington officials outlined the neighborhoods that weren't to get power by Sunday night: the highlands, Lake Garda, Coppermine Road and Coppermine Village. Yet some customers in those areas did see restoration.

Others, like those in Unionville, repeatedly saw power come back on, only to fail again.

Over the nine days since the October snowstorm that left about 800,000 Connecticut residents without power, Farmington Town Council Chairman Mike Clark has expressed frustration with CL&P's lack of communication and the blatant lies he said the company has told.

After Farmington Valley officials held a press conference Friday, Town Manager Kathy Eagen said she thought the town would finally see an influx of crews and power restoration.

At a Sunday afternoon press conference, Mike Clark said the same thing.

“What we have in place today, the response of CLP, we all feel is what we should have had in place on Monday,” he said.

Clark also noted potential issues with the “Scotch tape” approach CL&P took to some repairs, with workarounds used by the company actually causing a rise in power outages over the weekend.

Many residents are wondering why the Farmington Valley, home to several CL&P executives, was late to receive power and seemingly last to receive resources. On Sunday U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy promised several investigations into what went wrong.