HARTFORD, Conn. — If you were one of the hundreds of thousands in Connecticut who lost power after Tropical Storm Isaias, now is your chance is speak up.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority continues its three-day public hearing Thursday.
PURA is investigating how Eversource and United Illuminating handled the response to wide-spread power outages causes by the tropical storm.
Connecticut’s Attorney General is urging PURA to direct Eversource and United Illuminating to compensate customers for food and medicine lost during the outages.
Nearly 800,000 customers lost power for more than a week.
The utility companies faced a lot of criticism for what leaders like tong and the governor say was a lack of preparation.
Eversource released a statement in response to the hearings.
We understand the hardships our customers and towns experienced during Tropical Storm Isaias. Every major storm poses unique challenges for our customers and provides us with the invaluable opportunity to examine our emergency response processes and procedures. These public comment sessions are an important part of PURA’s storm review process – allowing customers and community leaders to express their input and share their experiences. We welcome their feedback and continue to work with PURA, other state agencies and elected officials to evaluate additional opportunities to coordinate a stronger emergency response.
Earlier this month, Gov. Lamont signed the 'Take Back Our Grid Act' into law, which is aiming to prevent this from happening again.
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"So transitioning into a performance base structure where the utility is either rewarded or penalized for not achieving those metrics which or set transparently in a meeting with multiple stakeholders,” PURA chair Marissa Gillett said.
The governor said he sees the Take Back Our Grid Act as more of a beginning than an end.
"I realized that more than ever that this is not just a utility it’s life giving and this why we had to get it right," he added.
The hearings this week will be held virtually via zoom. You can submit a written testimony to: pura.information@ct.gov
Wednesday's hearing starts at 11 a.m., while Thursday and Friday's will begin at 9 a.m.