Community Corner

Canton Power Restoration Nowhere Near Revised Estimate of 95.8%

CL&P revises Sunday night estimate to 76.3%

Although CL&P had estimated that power would be restored by midnight Sunday to 95.8 percent of its 4,928 households in Canton, the number was revised drastically downward to 76.3 percent percent late Sunday night.

Canton was one of the towns hardest hit by a rare October snowstorm that knocked out power to almost 1 million CL&P customers on Oct. 29. CL&P initially vowed to restore power to 99% of customers in all of the towns it serves by Sunday at midnight, but backed off the estimate for some towns, including Canton.

In a news conference Sunday afternoon, CL&P Chief Operating Officer Jeff Butler apologized for not meeting the company’s “aggressive, self-imposed” deadline and said it will meet its final date of Wednesday.

“We still believe strongly that we will achieve 100 percent restoration by Wednesday evening,” Butler said. “(Setting the deadline) was the right decision and we stand by that decision. People have been working hard for eight days now; we need to see this through and the focus remains on getting power restored as quickly as possible.”

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At about 11 p.m. Sunday night, CL&P said approximately 64,000 customers were without power, the majority in the Farmington Valley and northern Tolland County. 

"We have not given up and have about 2,500 line and tree crews at work," Butler said in a news release. The company still estimated that 99 percent of Canton customers would get power by Monday at midnight, and 100 percent by Wednesday night.


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