A tree and wires down blocked Rockewell Road in Ridgefield for days after Storm Isaias.
Macklin Reid / Hearst Connecticut MediaRIDGEFIELD — Real people’s tales of how hard storm outages have hit the town — stories and specifics from the 8,400 homes and business left without power for up to a week after Tropical Storm Isaias — need to become testimony at state hearings, town officials say.
On Thursday night, the smaller storm — which left 200 people without power — has increased First Selectman Rudy Marconi’s frustration with Eversource.
“This is beyond exasperating,” Marconi said Friday. “They will not tell us when we can expect a line crew into town. In spite of repeated phone calls and emails, Eversource is silent with respect to restoration.”
At about 3 p.m. Friday, Eversource’s website reported 42 homes or businesses in Ridgefield were still without power from Thursday night’s storm
Marconi asked people who lost power Thursday night to add their voices to those who suffered outages in the aftermath of Isaias. Marconi encouraged customers to submit outage timelines and recount of their experiences to be included in the hearing of the Eversource case opened by the Public Utilities Regulation Authority for Connecticut.
Town officials have provided guidelines for sending the information to the state and the town, for use in a hearing looking into Eversource’s preparation and response to Isaias.
The information must be submitted by Oct. 16 for use in the hearing.
Gerri Lewis, of the Ridgefield Office of Emergency Management, said Ridgefielders’ outage information can be shared with PURA by sending emails to pura.information@ct.gov and reference Docket No. 20-08-03 with a copy sent to the town at selectman@ridgefieldct.org.
“This information is important because it will help PURA to understand why Ridgefield is demanding that Eversource respond more effectively to our outages,” Lewis said.
“Making safe and restoring power, particularly to priority areas, should not be ignored in the future.”