DANBURY, Conn — Eversource has now over 2-thousand workers on the road restoring power.
This comes after many crews came in from out-of-state, but many residents say this process is taking too long.
“Like it just sucks having no power here, it’s like we can’t cook in the food is just all spoiled and everything… It’s just not fair,” said Kim Nunez.
Kim Nunez did not want to speak on camera, but her thoughts mirror many who say Eversource needs to work faster when restoring power, but other people like Henry Manning whose power since has been restored says it was worth the wait.
Manning said, “I think every source get on a better job but I’m not going to read them for it do you know there’s a lot going on. “
Eversource is receiving help from out of state workers including some from Canada.
They all are going through command centers like this one in Danbury who are deploying crews to various locations in need.
The manager of Emergency Preparedness for Eversource, Dean Desautels said, “This is a lot, the damage from this storm has been very excessive.”
Fewer than 250,000 people are still without power which means working double-time to clear broken trees and debris.
Officials say this job requires a lot of manpower.
“They can identify exactly what’s needed for the restoration and we can package it if they don’t have it on the truck,” said Desautels.
Eversource has taken quite the hit from critics saying the utility company failed in its response.
One of those critics is State Senator Norman Needleman, who is also the First Selectman of Essex. He told FOX61, “They just have a top-centric way of operating and I think that the company needs to fundamentally change.”
In a Facebook post, the senator, who is Chairman of the legislature's Energy & Technology Committee, wrote: "As a business owner myself, I know accountability starts at the top, and Eversource CEO James J. Judge needs to be held accountable for his company's completely unacceptable preparation for, and reaction to, this storm. Today, I’m calling for his resignation as CEO of Eversource."
Company spokesperson Mitch Gross responded with a statement that said:
"As with all storms, we will participate in an after-action review with regulators and community stakeholders to evaluate our approach to emergency response efforts and storm restoration. But today we’re focused on one thing – doing everything we can do to restore power to our customers."
“This is an entire company effort. We have resources from all of our service territories, including our gas operations are deployed here in Connecticut to make sure we have the quickest safest restoration available,” said Desautels.
Officials and town leaders say they will be looking to hold Eversource accountable.
“We have to do better, we have an obligation to hold them accountable and find ways legally to make them more accountable to the ratepayers,” said State Sen. Needleman.
Eversource says that they’ll be working to restore power diligently but still lawmakers say that they’ll be looking at legislative action so that this won’t happen again.