To the Editor:

I wanted to thank both Rep Mitch Bolinsky and our First Selectman Dan Rosenthal for coming to the assistance of my family during this latest weather crisis.

Having been through one some years ago where we were without power twice for nine days each time and for five days on another occasion, I really thought that in the interim years, a lot of the issues that caused those long outages had been dealt with (since our electric bills continued to increase).

The communication from Eversource was unreliable at best and false at worst — 90 percent of the STAT (status update) texts came back with “Evaluating” and one, on Thursday, August 6, came back that power would be restored at 3 pm that day. That was not the case; nor was adequate preparation or initial response the case. (And I completely, 100 percent support the demand to break up the “Neversource” monopoly and to fire the CEO of EversourceCT with a lawsuit rather than a “golden parachute” deal).

We had a sporadically working generator (which didn’t work at all the first few days, so we lost all the food in our refrigerator and freezer), which we used to run water, charge our phones, and run some fans for a few hours at a time... during a heat advisory.

We (stupidly) believed Eversource when they said “by noon Tuesday, August 11,” which was already going to be an unacceptable six days. Then the STAT texts reverted back to “Evaluating,” with no day/time restoration.

When I called (for about the fifth or sixth time) Tuesday afternoon, they then told me, “by midnight Tuesday.” They lied again. When it finally became evident on Wednesday, August 12 (“power was restored to your area”) that something was still very wrong, I sent messages to both Dan Rosenthal and Mitch Bolinsky (to Mitch because he had helped me during a previous weather/electricity issue). Only a few hours later, a two-man crew came out and put our downed wires back up on the pole from the house to the street (something I’d called Eversource about at least four times). Mitch told me that Dan had Emergency Management follow up with Eversource.

So one day less than my nine-day record, an eight-day outage, especially right after a ludicrous doubling of monthly charges by an inept management is completely unacceptable. At the same time, the people who actually worked on clearing the roads, fixing damaged wires, and rewiring everything deserve an outstanding round of thanks for dealing with oppressive heat, severe damages, and extremely long days.

And I want to give a heartfelt thanks to Dan Rosenthal and Mitch Bolinsky for getting Eversource to finally help us!

Patricia Campbell

18 Dinglebrook Lane, Newtown August 17, 2020