Greenwich Time- The governor is calling for a probe into Connecticut Light & Power's response to the weekend's major storm, saying municipal leaders have complained about the utility's slow response after thousands were left without power.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell's response also comes after union officials claimed that CL&P delayed their response to keep costs down.
Rell said she heard from many municipal leaders, fire and police chiefs and emergency management officials, who said they had trouble reaching utility officials -- often getting voice mail or no answer -- and said that they saw relatively few utility crews on the job in the first two days of the storm.
Rell has asked the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security and the state Department of Public Utility Control to pull individual work crew records for Saturday and Sunday.
"Thousands of Connecticut residents remain without power even now -- three days after the storm, with nighttime lows still dipping into the 30s," Rell said in a statement. "And it is flatly unacceptable for a fire or police official to be unable to reach a `real person' at a utility company in the middle of an emergency. We need to know what went wrong, why it happened and how to keep it from happening again."
CL&P spokesman Frank Poirot Tuesday morning declined to comment on the allegations by labor union officials that the utility didn't want to pay crews double time for working longer shifts.
"We're focus our efforts on restoration," Poirot said. "Anything else is a distraction."
2 months ago
No comments:
Post a Comment