5 August—Eversource done it again! True to form, Northwest Connecticut’s rogue electric utility monopoly—it provides and is supposed to service the power transmission lines—screwed up royally. An underground transformer caught fire in Woodbury on Saturday night. The town’s volunteer firefighters notified Eversource as soon as they got the call and made it to the scene within minutes.

But since electrical fires can’t be doused with water—it conducts electricity and can result in electrocution—the firefighters had to wait for Eversource to turn off the power. And that took three hours. Three hours for Eversource—which, essentially borrowing or stealing the Coast Guard’s well-deserved motto “Semper paratus,” boasts that it’s always ready to deal with emergencies—to round up a person or crew to get to the scene and/or flick a remotely located switch to shut off the power. “Nunquam paratus,” “never prepared,” would be an appropriate motto for the sorry utility—and not just in this instance.

Several times during the three-hour wait, concerned and nervous Woodbury emergency management personnel were assured by Eversource that its always-ready people were responding to the emergency. Of course, what else could Eversource say in the circumstance? Typical, typical, typical. It is Eversource, after all.

Luckily, there were no injuries or non-Eversource property damage reported. But Eversource’s slothful response is totally unacceptable. No surprise that the arrogant power monopoly has been uncommunicative about the incident while its PR spinners concoct ways to rationalize—weasel out of—its inexcusable, indefensible response to an emergency.

We can’t wait to see what Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority does about it and how Eversource defends itself . . .