UPDATE: CL&P Restores Power to 210K; No Time Offered for 430K Still Without It

Editor's Note at 8:55 p.m. We just updated this article with a PDF that shows all of the Naugatuck streets that are without power as of Tuesday evening, as provided by Fire Chief Ken Hanks. Click on the document at the right to make it bigger on the screen to read the PDF. 

Hanks said Tuesday that the emergency operations center will be set up at the Naugatuck Fire Department headquarters downtown. He said he hopes Connecticut Light & Power will begin the power restoration process tomorrow.

"To this point, they have done the simple fixes, but we've got a couple transformers down and poles that need to be fixed," he said. "We also have some areas where live wires are down - such as on Fairview Avenue. They are not primary lines, but can still be dangerous."

Because of issues like that, he believes the call to cancel school tomorrow as a good one.

"The last thing we want to hear tomorrow is that a kid went out to the bus stop and was standing next to a live wire," he said. "We had lengthy discussions about school and believe we made the right decision."

Original article:

As 430,000 CL&P customers remained in the dark late Tuesday afternoon, a utility spokesman said the extent of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy meant that the utility couldn't yet offer a restoration timeline.

"We've been at this for less than 24 hours," William Quinlan, a senior vice president for CL&P, said at a 6 p.m. news briefing. "We'll be close to completing that tomorrow."

Power had been restored to 210,000 customers by late Tuesday afternoon, Quinlan said, and the company had 1,080 line workers from outside the state working with its own crews to repair lines as well as 638 tree workers to help with downed trees and limbs. 

"There's a request across the United States for 22,000 line workers," Quinlan said when asked why the utility hadn't already reached its goal of 2,000 out-of-state line workers. "There's over 6 million customers without power."

CL&P, the state's largest utility, provides power to customers in 149 of Connecticut's 169 municipalities. Every one of those towns was affected in some way by Hurricane Sandy, the utility said.

"Our system took on very heavy damage last night," Quinlan said. The company's priorities today, he said, were clearing blocked roads, assessing damage and establishing staging areas in Waterford, Madison, Newtown, Stamford and Westport.

Naugatuck had 876 customers still without power as of 8 p.m. Tuesday; that is 6 percent of the 14,336 CL&P customers in Naugatuck.

By far the heaviest damage during Hurricane Sandy happened along the Connecticut shoreline, but some inland towns also have extensive power outages because of wind gusts that took down trees and power lines.

Comparing the damage to last year's outages affecting 800,000 people after a freak October snowstorm, Quinlan said the utility was better prepared for this storm.

"We think we have the resources to deliver a strong response," he said.

Eleven tranmission lines were out because of the storm, but Quinlan said four of those — affecting 30,000 customers — would be restored soon.

The utility urged customers to call 800-286-2000 to report outages, and when the restoration effort is further along, to get an estimate of restoration times.

"We think we're making very good progress," Quinlan said. "As we move into the bulk of the restoration, we'll be energizing large numbers of people."

For the most recent outage reports, visit CL&P's outage map.