CL&P Launches Local Emergency Systems

CL&P on Tuesday unveiled new emergency response systems to local officials during a summit the company held at its Berlin headquarters.

The new systems will allow town officials, many of whom roundly criticized CL&P for how it handled last year's storms and power outages, greater monitoring of the utility's response to outages, including online tracking of power restoration efforts, according to a report in the Hartford Courant.

Part of the new system will give real-time updates from the field of where utility workers are restoring power.

Many town leaders were critical of how CL&P handled the devastating power losses that resulted last year from Tropical Storm Irene in August and the a freak snowstorm that hit the state in October.

During Irene, which left hundreds of thousands of customers in Connecticut without power for at least a week, many town officials were unable to contact anyone from CL&P for power restoration updates. During public hearings held on the utility's response following Irene, some local officials complained bitterly about CL&P's restoration efforts.

The issue lead, in part, to the resignation earlier this year of CL&P's chief executive Jeffrey Butler.