HARTFORD, Conn. — Tempers are snapping as fast as the snow-laden branches that brought down power lines across the Northeast last weekend, with close to 300,000 Connecticut customers still in the dark and the state’s biggest utility warning them not to threaten or harass repair crews.
Residents left without heat amid near-freezing overnight temperatures have been lashing out at Connecticut Light & Power, accosting repair crews, making profane criticisms online and suing.
In Simsbury, a hard-hit town of about 25,000 residents, National Guard troops deployed to clear debris have been providing security outside a utility office building.
At a shelter at Simsbury High School, resident Stacy Niezabitowski, 53, said Friday that she would love to yell at someone from Connecticut Light & Power but hadn’t seen any of its crews.
“Everybody is looking for someplace to vent — not a scapegoat, just someplace to vent your anger so somebody will listen and do something,” said Niezabitowski, who was having lunch at the shelter with her 21-year-old daughter. “Nobody is doing anything.”
The October nor’easter knocked out power to more than 3 million homes and businesses across the Northeast, including 830,000 in Connecticut, where outages now exceed those of all other states combined.
Connecticut Light & Power said it hoped to get almost all power back on by Sunday night.
