Power outages from wind took all weekend to restore

LAKEVILLE — Anyone looking for a power truck around 8:30 p.m. Saturday needed look no further than Lakeville’s Interlaken Inn, where more than 20 vehicles from all over the Northeast were parked while about 100 utility workers stopped for a late dinner. Kathy Wiggins,who works the inn’s front desk during the night hours, was busy at the inn Saturday night directing the workers to wherever they wanted to go, whether into the dining room for dinner, to the best spots for cell phone coverage or into the restrooms to freshen up after hours out on the lines in rainy, chilly weather. “From here,” said Wiggins, “they’ll go to sleep at other places in the region. We here at The Interlaken, and over at The Wake Robin Inn, were both completely booked, with weddings and other events this weekend.”Wiggins said the Interlaken has a contract with Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) that their workers get dinner at 35 percent off the general price. The workers came from all over the country, including New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and New Jersey, converging in Philadelphia then driving up to Connecticut to help CL&P finish the job of returning power to all its customers following the storm on Thursday, June 9. Heavy rain, fierce winds and bursts of lightning brought down many trees and wires and caused crippling damage to some transfomers. Outages in the Northwest Corner, and thoughout the state, ranged from a relatively mild five or six hours to more than three full days. Major roads were closed due to downed trees and wires for most of the weekend, including Route 7 going from Falls Village down to Cornwall Bridge and Salmon Kill Road and Route 41 in Salisbury.As of Monday morning, June 13, power had been restored to more than 210,000 customers throughout CL&P’s service area (149 of Connecticut’s 169 towns), according to Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the utility. In Salisbury, 2,267 customers had no power at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 9. As of Monday morning only one customer was still without power. Cornwall had 119 customers without power at 8 p.m. Thursday; they all had service again by Sunday evening, June 12. In the town of Canaan (which is known as Falls Village), there were 124 customers without power at 9 p.m. Thursday. They all had power again by Sunday evening. In Kent, 286 customers were without power as of 7 p.m. Thursday. Power was fully restored by Sunday. For North Canaan, 175 customers were out as of 9 p.m. Thursday, and three customers were still out as of Monday morning. In Sharon, 588 customers were without power as of 7 p.m. Thursday; one customer was still out Monday morning.A flashlight for every guestThe widespread damage affected businesses in the region, especially in the Lakeville and Lime Rock sections of Salisbury, which were without power for two days or more during the weekend of the busiest season of the year.The power at the Interlaken was out Thursday from around 4 to 10 p.m.Dan Bolognani, director of sales and marketing at the inn, said that, “Though the Interlaken was only out of power about six hours total, it still created an interesting dynamic among our guests. “With quiet and dark guestrooms, many of our guests congregated in the main lobby and restaurant to partake in socialization and conversation with other guests and with Interlaken staff. “Our electrical backup systems keep the front desk and restaurant operating during blackouts, so we were able to provide a cozy and reassuring atmosphere for our guests.”At Lakeville’s Wake Robin Inn, power was out from Thursday around 4:30 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. Saturday, when it was first restored. Wake Robin innkeeper Shaffin Shariff (fellow innkeeper Michael Loftus was away for the weekend), said after the power was restored early Saturday morning, the inn experienced several power surges and additional outages. The Wake Robin had guests staying over for the Indian Mountain School graduation Thursday, and Shariff said they were “game and supportive, as we kept them continually informed about what we knew, which was very little.” The inn was also full for the weekend, with 80 guests staying for The Hotchkiss School’s alumni reunion weekend and a Lakeville wedding. Shariff called guests in transit to forewarn them, and gave out flashlights to each guest on arrival. “We did breakfast the old-fashioned way,” he wrote, “like in olden times. We brewed coffee over the stove and filtered it. We used gas stoves and the oven to bake bread, iced all the juices and dairy and were able to provide a complete continental breakfast.”No power, so no waterAt the racetrack at Lime Rock Park, power was lost at 4:30 p.m. Thursday when the first round of storms hit, according to Operations Manager Scott Mayo. The racing school had its first Summer Series race this past weekend, and expected about 50 drivers with family and friends, he said, so that was about 70 to 100 people at the track including the racing school crew. Mayo said he was able to secure a large generator Friday morning to run the park’s well pumps to get water to the kitchens and bathrooms. Lime Rock does not have town water but is on well water, so when the power is out the water pumps are out.Mayo found an additional large generator to run the park’s freezers and refrigeration units. “We were able to save most of the frozen food and only lost a small amount of the refrigerated produce,” he wrote in an email. Since the appliances are run by gas, they were working and food could be prepared and served while the power was out.Power was not restored at Lime Rock Park until about 8:20 p.m. Saturday. “This outage will have us looking more closely to come up with an emergency plan for power in the future,” Mayo said.Alumni: a sense of adventureAt Lakeville’s Hotchkiss School, power was out from shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday to sometime after 2 a.m. Saturday. On Friday, there were more than 600 people on campus for a reunion weekend, with about 300 staying in the dorms. It was challenging to carry out planned events on the campus, and it was also difficult for alumni who were staying in hotels and dorm rooms with no electricity.Caroline Reilly, associate director of the school’s alumni and parent programs, said, “The alumni office sent out an email early Friday morning to all alumni returning for the reunion. People’s expectations were managed, and so all went well. We gave out flashlights to everybody but some alumni brought their own. “In total we had 800 alumni and their guests here for the weekend. All the planned events went on as scheduled on Friday; our Hotchkiss staff set up cables from locations where we had power from generators, so we could run the events. The power outage was an extra challenge for us to meet, but people were extremely understanding. Alumni came with a sense of adventure.”Criticism of CL&PSome business owners who spent more than a day without power said they found CL&P’s method of sharing information with customers was inadequate. They were frustrated, they said, when the estimated time of power restoration kept changing. Shariff said his wish is that CL&P would “customize messages according to specific accounts and areas affected. Since workers at different pockets are working on specific problems, there are already localized estimates from those crews. Share those specifics with customers.” He believes it would also be helpful if CL&P shared with some public outlet how and why the crews are giving certain areas priority.“It’s a complete mystery to me why a few areas got their power back Thursday at 9 p.m., an outage lasting only five hours, and large entities like us and Hotchkiss were without power for a day and a half.”