Report by Paula Antolini, August 11, 2020, 4:19AM EDT
An NBC News article indicates that the electric power was restored Monday, August 10th in Bethel, but power was not restored to southern parts of Bethel until 3:34 a.m. Tuesday, August 11.
After a week without power, and sizzling temperatures in the 90’s, Bethel First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker and Bethel Police Chief Stephen Pugner appeared in an NBC News interview commenting upon the poor Eversource response to the electric restoration in Bethel.
Knickerbocker stated, “We have been calling and calling and calling and saying right here in our very critical department that our community relies on, they could not get power.” He was referring to the Bethel Police Station.
The Bethel Police station did not have power 6 of the 7 days of the outage in Bethel, and after the loss of power, the police relied on a generator to serve and protect the people of Bethel, but the generator did not last. “It’s designed to last two or three days, however, they just make sure we have fuel.” Chief Pugner stated, ““We’ve had up to 10 times last week that our phones have been out altogether.”
Knickerbocker said Eversource told him they weren’t aware of the outage at the police station, according to NBC News.
The first repair crews did not show up until Friday, 4 days after the storm, NBC states. They first had to make sure electric lines were not live before crews could start clearing the fallen trees and debris off roads. Chief Pugner said, “They can’t touch any of those trees on the lines until we’re 100 percent positive there isn’t any energy to those lines.”
Knickerbocker said, “This is my fifth major storm and I and have to say this is the worst performance by Eversource that I have seen so far.”
View some photos from the storm below.
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