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CL&P: 99% of Monroe Should Have Power by Midnight on Friday

Power has been restored to Marion Heights and High Meadows, Masuk Spirit Week and Homecoming moved up, Trunk or Treat and more.

Connecticut Light & Power announced this morning that those without power in Monroe is down to 42 percent. Nine line crews and nine tree crews are working in town today and 99 percent of Monroe is now expected to have their power back by midnight on Friday — two days earlier than the previous estimate.

Marion Heights and High Meadows on Monroe Turnpike now have power.

That news and the following information came out of the Emergency Management meeting at the Monroe Police Department this morning.

The Monroe Senior Center will be used as an emergency shelter around the clock through Saturday, at which point the need for it will be reevaluated.

Edith Wheeler Memorial Library is being used as a warming center today through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

The Garder Road Landfill will be open for green storm debris (not garbage) for its regular hours on Saturday. The hours will then be evaluated for next week.

Officials are still hoping to open all schools by Monday.

Due to field conditions, the Masuk High School Panthers football game scheduled for Saturday has been moved to Pomperaug High School in Southbury where the teams will face off at 7 p.m.

This week is normally Spirit Week leading up to the Homecoming game. Spirit Week has been moved up to the week of Thanksgiving and the holiday game between Masuk and Newtown will be Homecoming.

SATs are still scheduled at Masuk this Saturday.

Trunk or Treat

Halloween will be celebrated as Trunk or Treat at Wolfe Park this Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. Parents can bring candy for children there. Department of Public Works crews and CL&P are still seeing downed wires and trees throughout town, so this event is meant to provide a safe environment for children. More details may be coming out of the First Selectman's Office later today.

Burglars have taken advantage of non-functioning alarm systems and of people spending time away from home during the power outages, according to police, who said four burglaries have been reported on the east side of town since Saturday. Police urge residents to lock their doors.

Showers are available at the Lakewood Trumbull YMCA today through Friday from 5:15 a.m. to 9 p.m. and at Masuk High School from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Non-drinkable water is available at Stevenson Fire Station 2 on Monroe Turnpike and at the Monroe Police Department, 7 Fan Hill Road. Drinking water may be bought at local stores.

To report power outages, call CL&P at 800-286-2000.

If you see wires across the road or sparking wires, call the Monroe Police Department at 203-261-3622.

Do not touch any wires, because they may be live.

captrips November 3, 2011 at 04:01 pm
Enter some palm trees and a hot climate and one might think we're in a 3rd world country given what's taking place.
Christine E. November 3, 2011 at 04:09 pm
It's a nice alternative, barbara. No one's forcing you to do it. Here at my office in Wilton, we participate in the Halloween Walk every year, where kids have the opportunity to trick or treat door-to-door at local businesses during the day. Nothing says they can't also go door to door to houses in the evening, but it's great particularly for those kids who are very young.
Christine E. November 3, 2011 at 04:16 pm
Our Charter HD signal has been choppy for the last two months. It keeps skipping frames. All we want is to get what we're paying for. You say your signal's choppy, and they take you through this whole song and dance about "power cycling the cable box". The cable box isn't the problem. I also think Charter is ridiculous with the way that make you cycle through hundreds of channels you don't even have access to, as well as putting the HD channels at the most obscure numbers up in the 300-700's where you can't even remember which channels are network television and which are cable. Looking forward to our switch to Uverse in the near future.
Carolyn November 3, 2011 at 05:38 pm
I had the same question about trick or treating. I was looking forward to door to door. I hope that still takes place. I think clearer language is necessary instead of assuming people will just know they can still do door to door. I'm afraid some kids may end up with no "candy" experience this year if the wrong assumption is made.
Rich November 3, 2011 at 05:50 pm
Checked "my outage status" on CL&P-They said my power was restored last night. Guess again. Just checked now, and it says Sunday Midnight. Now they announce that monroe should be 99% by Friday. Why even bother wasting man hours on this-It is inaccurate at best.
Rich November 3, 2011 at 08:36 pm
Monroe is back up to 49%
Michele Mount November 4, 2011 at 03:55 am
The unfortunate news is that we can't switch to another Utility like UI because CL&P owns this service territory. It is like saying; we don't like the owners of that house, so let’s throw them out and put in new owners. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Department of Public Utilities regulates them and allows them a profit of 10%. This is their web site to make a complaint, http://www.ct.gov/dpuc/cwp/view.asp?a=3352&q=404030. We all should make complaints and the town should consider suing CL&P as Simsbury and a few other towns are considering. After Irene the town should have made sure CL&P was here severely cutting back trees. Trimming trees would not have prevented all the damage but it could have lessened the severity. Several people called on the town to work with CL&P and demand action, this did not happen. The town have Bethel is receiving help from Bridgeport's Public Works Dept. Why isn't Monroe receiving this help, especially when Monroe is part of the Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning Authority? As I have said, we must now work together to help each other get through this crisis. After, we must make sure we have leaders in place that will be proactive and demand action. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, a stitch in time saves nine. Old proverbs but they are very relevant.
monroe taxpayer November 4, 2011 at 04:29 am
Sounds like the DPUC is at fault here also, for allowing CL&P to cut its line and tree crews back to current levels? I read they downsized by 20% in the last ten years!
Adam Gitow November 4, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Michele,
Is CL&P regulated or unregulated? If regulated, then all those morons who do the regulating need to be fired, fined, jailed or whatever for allowing CL&P do get away with such high rates & lousy service.
captrips November 4, 2011 at 01:05 pm
Michelle, I agree with your statement but quite frankly have little faith in any politican at the moment. The bottom line is this: there will be a lot of noise; CL&P will be publicly flogged; a few token heads may even roll at CL&P, the governor and some of his team will put on a nice public show; and then?. And then the furor will subside and we, the zero-attention span public will resume our normal lives and move on to the next thing that captures our attention. Meanwhile, Northeast Utilities will continue to run it's "regulated", privately-owned monopoly, continue to lobby and funnel campaign money to elected officials and bide its time to submit its next rate increase inclusive of recouping the costs of Irene and this storm. It will be approved and we'll pay yet more for the same lousy service. And our elected officials will get right back to focusing on what they do best, preparing for either re-election or their next career step in either the "next level" of politics or the private sector. We've all seen this movie before and we know how it ends.
jim laguardia November 4, 2011 at 01:21 pm
just be very careful there have been numerous fires these past few day (including just this morning) from damaged wires being recharged
jim laguardia November 4, 2011 at 01:21 pm
please be careful, there are still wires catching fire as they are being recharged
Stephanie G November 4, 2011 at 01:42 pm
Christine - back when we moved to Monroe in '99 (almost the dark ages), we decided to get DirecTV because we were so unhappy with the offerings that Charter had. However, because my husband is a teacher, and we couldn't get local channels on DirecTV at that time, we ended up getting "Lifeline" cable service from Charter so we could at least see CT school closings.
The Charter tech who came out to do the install came right out and said that Charter was so cheap that they refused to upgrade their infrastructure here in Monroe (sound familiar, CL&P??) and as a result, their picture quality was pretty crummy. He even said that if he lived in an area served by Charter, he wouldn't use them. I'd like to think (hope?) that might have changed in the 12 years since, but I know that I've never considered using them and we've been more or less happy with our Uverse since making the switch last year. Ironically, several years ago when we were having problems with our old DSL line, an AT&T tech also told me that their infrastructure here in Monroe is pretty old/lousy. I know they did some upgrades in order to get Uverse into the area, but there seems to be a general theme here...
Rt25 November 4, 2011 at 02:15 pm
@catrips, what do you suggest we all do?
Rt25 November 4, 2011 at 02:17 pm
@Mount, I read somewhere in one of these articles that Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch and CAO Andrew Nunn (who resides in Monroe) have contacted the FS and will assist Monroe. I believe Bridgeport will be in Monroe today. I say "thank you" to our neighboring City.
Michele Mount November 4, 2011 at 02:33 pm
@ RT25, Let me know if you confirm that and I will say thank you as well. The electric utilities are "semi-regulated." The transmissions are regulated but the generation is not. The companies that provide the transmission can't generate power except under a few limited circumstances. Many critics say de-regulation didn't work, however, we didn't completely deregulate. There have been moves to regulate it all again, but I don't think that would be moving in the right direction. We need to provide incentives for power companies to produce cheaper and cleaner energy. Utilize solar, fuel cells and wind, while refining and developing the current technology. The legislature's last energy bill provided tax relief, incentives and grants for people and towns to take advantage of alternate energy. There are also towns with quasi-municipal electric companies, like Norwalk and Wallingford. They had very few outages. Solutions are out there we as town should be actively seeking to improve things here in town and make sure we are apprised of every opportunity to improve this situation, so we can try to avoid this kind of severity in the future.
captrips November 4, 2011 at 02:41 pm
@Rt25, I could respond with the standard, file complaints with the DPUC, hold our elected officials accountable, etc. And, yes, I guess we should all still do that under the guise that perhaps the "system" is able to at least be influenced to do the right thing like it was once-upon-a-time. However, deep in my heart, I don't really know if there's anything any of us can really do except vote for who you see fit, continue to pay usury rates, maybe install whole house generators for the next time this happens and buy stock in Northeast Utilities to offset the costs of the above. I know this isn't a good answer but it's all I've got. Perhaps your question should be posed to the governor, the DPUC, the attorney general, the leaders of the state senate/house, our local state reps and our town leadership. Their responses, or lack thereof, should indicate what's doable.
QWERTY November 4, 2011 at 03:52 pm
Violence. I'm not recommending it or implying it's the right thing to do, simply stating that it gets results.
Brian McMahon November 4, 2011 at 04:05 pm
QWERTY, I don't generally have a problem with your posts. I like that you speak your mind. But you should rethink this one. It doesn't matter whether you qualified it or not.
pacfan November 4, 2011 at 04:27 pm
Where are our Politicians? This is just another example of why our town needs to clean house of all incumbents (regardless of political party, top to bottom, A to Z). In addition, most of our higher elected officials we don't even see or hear from until its vote time and then our mail boxes are full of them. If these people can't even do something easy like help get the arson victim Rustic Grille get re-opened, do you think they can take on an utility company? How much more crap are we going to let be piled on top of our heads (while we sit in the dark)?
QWERTY November 4, 2011 at 04:49 pm
Show me where I'm wrong. Wars solve problems. That's pretty much been the norm for centuries. It's not a nice answer to us because we live in a civilized society...but it still does exist.
Michele Mount November 4, 2011 at 05:13 pm
I am right here pacfan. I am also available by phone and appointment. 203-209-3132
QWERTY November 4, 2011 at 05:33 pm
What about burying major electric lines within our town? Start from the sub-station (wherever that is...does Monroe even have one?) and work outwards. Do it over a 5-10-15 year period, make it a long term plan. Secure rt. 111 and rt. 25 first, guarantee power to commerce so the entire town has supplies (gasoline, food, medicine, etc) regardless of incident.
What are the prospects for this? Is it feasible? Legal? My circuit is out because a quasi-major road got hammered. I can only surmise if the wires on this 1/2 mile road were buried that 200 homes would never have lost power.
DBACK November 4, 2011 at 05:35 pm
CLP just changed the 99% status to Sunday.This really sucks....
captrips November 4, 2011 at 05:35 pm
pacfan, last I checked, the town's officials are only one step above the town's citizens in the CL&P foodchain. If we heed the voice of "Deep Throat" from Watergate days and "Follow the money...", the elected officials that need to be targeted are: state and federal officials. CL&P and the DPUC need to ultimately be held accountable.Our local folks can complain, badger, embarass, etc. but wield only a slightly thicker and drier "wet newspaper" than we, the ratepayers.
Brian McMahon November 4, 2011 at 05:46 pm
I think your generalizations that “violence gets results” and that “wars solve problems” are both wrong. I’d be willing to bet there are plenty of actual assault victims and families of fallen soldiers that would agree with me. But that’s not why I posted earlier. My problem with your post is that it was ultimately in response to RT25’s question to captrips which asked “what do you suggest we all do?”. Responding “violence”, whether you qualified your answer or not, is irresponsible and the last thing we need to make the power outages a bigger source of tension than they’ve already become. It would only take one unstable reader of your post to prove me out.
QWERTY November 4, 2011 at 06:02 pm
If you can provide me with a realistic, practical resolution, I'd be all for it. We all know our government and political system aren't setup in such a way to fix these problems. When people are treated like animals, they soon become them. I contacted numerous politicians (and CL&P) after Irene, only to be brushed aside by all of them.
Imagine if a violent threat were made against Butler to meet his self imposed deadline...he would violate the company bankroll to make power ends meet. But in the today's world, he still gets paid his millions in salary. So instead of doing what's needed to restore power, he balances financials with restoration efforts. The governor, AG, local politicians...all matter not.
Michele Mount November 4, 2011 at 06:09 pm
There is the possibility of deregulating transmission of power, as well as, generation. That would be a matter for State Legislation. I have no opinion on that yet; I would have to do some serious research first. Anyone have an opinion or pros and cons of complete deregulation?
captrips November 4, 2011 at 06:43 pm
Pro: Competition generally, and I stress the word generally, allows for the best product at the best price. The basic tenet of free market capitalism.
Con: Deregulation of transmission and the Pro I listed above ignore the argument of barriers to entry and the definition of the word free, in free market capitalism. Let's start with barriers to entry. There would have to be an economically feasible way for another entity to compete with the existing supplier. I'm assuming the wing-to-wing transmission infrastructure is owned or under the contractual control of CL&P. As such, a competitor would have to figure out a way to deliver power via new infrastructure or using CL&P's assets. I wouldn't think new infrastructure could be cost feasible (barrier to entry) and why would CL&P allow a competitor to use it's assets? Unless of course government bought the assets via a market purchase; negotiated or via eminent domain. I don't know if there is any precedent for eminent domain in this arena or if it's realistic. As for the definition of the word free, we all know that there really isn't true, free competition and based on the rampant greed and manipulative games played by the financial services industry resulting in the 2008 crash, there probably shouldn't be. Unfortunately greed ruins the free in free markets. However, your suggestion is a good one and maybe there is a way to motivate a change in CL&P with a viable, competitive threat. Merely one opinion...
Brian McMahon November 4, 2011 at 06:56 pm
So if you discourage it...."I'm not recommending it"....and you think it is wrong...."I'm not implying it's the right thing to do"....then what was your point in mentioning violence and stating it "gets results" in the first place?

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