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Iino: From Frustrating to Infuriating

March roared in with three back-to-back nor’easters, knocking out power to the town and blowing through Killingworth’s snow removal budget. These events raised several long-term issues with Eversource, our power company.

Clearly, the March 7 storm hit Killingworth exceptionally hard. The combination of very heavy, wet snow and high winds broke hundreds of trees, blocking most of our roads and taking down power lines in scores of locations. Because Killingworth is both close to the shoreline and quite high in elevation, we often get the worst of storms: Coastal and inland, upper-elevation weather patterns converge. And, of course, we are heavily wooded. That’s normally one of the town’s charms.

Town crews were clearing roads from the beginning of the storm. However, when wires are involved, the town cannot remove downed trees or limbs until Eversource “makes safe” the location. To expedite clearing, we assign town crew members to work alongside Eversource, so that Eversource’s crews can keep moving once the wires are removed. Not all towns do this, but the system worked well for us this time, and almost all of our roads were passable by Friday morning.

In this event, Eversource began restoration efforts before its make-safe crews had completed their work, and by Sunday, it had 25 crews in town. Most people had lost power on Wednesday evening, and almost all were restored by Sunday evening.

One issue that the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority should address is Eversource’s reliance on out-of-state crews to respond to events such as this. The company’s local staff is so limited that response is always delayed. I am grateful to Eversource for prioritizing Killingworth in this event, since our town was the hardest hit in the state. Nevertheless, the long restoration times were frustrating.

Even more frustrating—actually, infuriating—was the terrible communication from Eversource. Residents received multiple messages, by phone and text, estimating restoration times that didn’t happen. I received the first one on Wednesday evening, predicting restoration at a time that had already passed. On Thursday, we received as many as six different estimates. People who wanted to leave for warmer locations (with running water) did not do so because they kept expecting power to be restored. Likewise, Red Cross could not plan its shelter opening based on such faulty communication.

From the outside, it looks as if the power company’s internal logistical planning and monitoring is as bad as external communications.

Meanwhile, Eversource has been conducting a vigorous tree-trimming program over the last several years, and that program had apparently succeeded in reducing the frequency of outages. This year, “enhanced tree trimming” is scheduled for Parker Hill, North Parker Hill, North Roast Meat Hill, and Burr Hill roads, removing trees and limbs from within a certain distance of power lines. Many other roads will receive maintenance trimming. But the extended outages this month remind us that we need to review the balance between preserving our trees and ensuring that power does not go down.