70 In Madison Still Without Power Thursday Afternoon After Early Morning Storm

About 70 CL&P customers in Madison, and 5,000 statewide, were still without power Thursday afternoon after an early morning storm knocked out power.

As of 6 p.m., CL&P crews were working at the intersection of Route 79 and Horsepond Road. As of 11 p.m., that intersection was still blocked off, but the CL&P was reporting no outages in Madison.

Over 500 line and tree crews continue to work to restore power to CL&P customers affected by last night's heavy rains and high winds, CL&P said in a prepared statement.

As of 1:30 p.m., about 5,000 customers remained without power, down from the peak of approximately 24,000 customers at 8 a.m. this morning.

"For CL&P customers who lost power due to this storm, we expect to substantially complete work by 8 p.m. tonight, and expect the remaining few hundred customers to have their power restored by midnight tonight or sooner,"  said CL&P's Acting President Jim Muntz, in a prepared statement.  "We will keep working and are committed to getting everyone back on as quickly and as safely as possible."

Jeffrey Butler, the former president and chief operating officer of Connecticut Light & Power, who presided over a historic string of outages following Tropical Storm Irene in the summer and a freak October snowstorm in October, resigned in November.

CL&P continues to remind customers to:

• Stay away from all downed wires.  Assume any downed, hanging or burning power lines are live and dangerous and call 9-1-1 immediately.  If a power line falls on your vehicle while you’re inside, stay there.  Don’t touch anything outside the vehicle and wait for emergency crews.
• Report your power outage by calling CL&P at 800-286-2000.  Our automated phone system rapidly processes your report and helps us speed restoration efforts.  It also provides restoration estimates as soon as they’re available.
• Before operating a generator, make sure it has been properly installed by a licensed electrician.  Improperly installed generators can feed electricity back into power lines and pose a deadly situation for our line workers.  Always operate generators outdoors to avoid carbon monoxide hazards.

For helpful tips and news updates, go to our website at cl-p.com, follow us on Twitter @CTLightandPower and like us at Facebook.com/CTLightandPower.  You can also get updates on outages in your town by texting “outage” and your zip code to 24612  (texting fees may apply).