You may have heard me bitch and moan that I was without power for five days due to Hurricane Irene. Actually, I should have been out for about two days with Hurricane Irene and the rest of those days fall squarely on the shoulders of the executives of United Illuminating.
United Illuminating (UI) is company that purchases, transmits, distributes and sells electricity to approximately 320,000 customers in the New Haven and Bridgeport areas. I’m in Fairfield, CT a town just south of Bridgeport. Connecticut has the highest kilowatt hour cost in the continental US at $0.1763/kwh for residential (the lowest state is North Dakota at $0.0731/kwh, tempting to move there, but it is North Dakota). You would assume, naturally, that paying such a ridiculous rate that one would receive great service, right? Wrong.
I’m not here to complain about that my power was cut off; I get it, there was a hurricane. Nor am I writing about the men and women who are in the streets of Connecticut trying to restore power for UI — they are doing a fine job with no leadership at all. I’m complaining very specifically about the following:
- The lack of communication to the towns and customers you service. You did not have an effective communication system in place for disasters such as these. Many towns’ first selectman are not happy with the executives at UI, mine included. There was not any estimates of power restoration for customers until yesterday. Some still have no idea when power will be restored six days later.
- The lack of properly trimming trees around your electrical transmission lines. Being from the Midwest, I’m used to electrical wires being buried. In most parts of CT, the lines are above ground. In the past three years, UI customers have had several incidents of being without power for three plus days due to tree branches knocking down power lines in storms. Many neighbors have requested that UI come trim the trees around the electrical lines, myself included, and they have never come to do the maintenance work. UI, stop buying up other energy companies, and spend money maintaining your current infrastructure. Don’t even think of trying to pass the clean up costs to the consumer, I don’t think our state government will stand for it.
Many UI customers are still without power. As of 9am Friday, there are still just shy of 22,000 businesses and residences without power. On Facebook, a Fairfield resident claims that UI still doesn’t know when her home’s power will be restored. Another was told Tuesday would probably be the day. Fairfield is not the only town who has suffered long power outages. The town of Easton still has 59% of UI customers without power. Utterly ridiculous.
I don’t have a choice to switch to another transmission company. I am stuck with United Illuminating until the state of Connecticut wises up and allows some competition. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be silent. Please join me in putting the tag #unitedilluminatingsucks on every comment you make today. I’d be tickled pink if when googling UI, Crasstalk shows up. You can also let them know how unacceptable it is to charge such rates and provide bad customer service via their twitter account: @UnitedIllum
Hopefully getting the word out will let UI know how displeased their customers are.
