United Illumination works on restoring power following outage over weekend

At its height, the utility had about 20,000 customers without power.

Tim O'Shea

Aug 5, 2024, 4:00 AM

Updated 44 days ago

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United Illuminating is working to restore power to customers following an outage over the weekend.
At its height, the utility had about 20,000 customers without power.
UI says that number is now down to about 2,200 customers.
It is awaiting word from the National Weather Service, but it does believe a microburst or a tornado was the cause of the extensive damage.
It says removing trees and downed power lines to reopen roads has been a challenge.
The company says its main priority is the safety of its workers.
"To put things in context, we have 107 line workers at UI. We brought in 200 external resources to work on this storm, " says Chuck Eves, vice president of Electric Operations.
"Our priority is to make sure everyone goes back the way they came here. That is something that we are focusing on; having enough people in a confined area work safely together."
UI says that any customers who are still without power to report it.