Those Massachusetts Outage and Restoration Numbers.

Connecticut Light & Power president Jeffrey Butler, the face of failure as power outages into a fourth cold night, got his back up over reports of swifter power restoration in neighboring Massachusetts.  As has become his custom, Butler rattled off some numbers and tried to move.  He thinks that since Massachusetts is twice the size of Connecticut comparisons are inappropriate and unfair to his company.

Not so fast.  A story from Monday’s Springfield Republican suggests that customers in Western Massachusetts have enjoyed swifter relief than their Connecticut neighbors.  On Sunday, 671,000 customers served by 3 utility companies in the region were without power.  That was expected to be reduced to 250,000 by Monday night. That’s 421,000 customers restored by Monday in a region contiguous to Connecticut.  On Monday, National Grid provided a list online of expected restorations by town. Not pretty reading, but helpful to customers trying to make provisions.