| Saw this on the Hartford Courants Web Site, thought others might be
interested in latest update on this tradgedy. Reprinted without
permission. Taken from: http://news.courant.com/article/ctnews6.stm
Monday CL&P blamed for slow response times
February 17
By PAUL MARKS
[Image] This story ran in the Courant February 16, 1997
[Image]
[Image] First the Somers Fire Department suffered the horror of a
[Image] firefighter's electrocution, then the sting of a $1,000
[Image] fine for the way it handled the Dec. 8 incident that
[Image] killed volunteer Craig Arnone.
[Image]
[Image] Complaints by officials detail slow reaction in cutting
[Image] power
[Image]
[Image] Now fire officials around the state, saying the blame
should extend further, are pointing critical fingers at
[Image] Connecticut Light & Power Co.
)1997
The Hartford Somers Fire Chief Edward Pagani reacted to the state Labor
Courant Department penalty levied Jan. 29 by saying he accepts
full responsibility for what happened that snowy night
that Arnone died. But he said CL&P ``owes us an
explanation and an apology'' for taking more than an hour
to cut off electricity to the site of the fire.
Pagani's words struck a chord with officials in several
towns, some of whom are pressing CL&P to respond faster to
emergency calls in which lives may be at stake.
Officials from Suffield, Enfield, Deep River, Cheshire,
Sharon and Morris cite instances when waiting for power
company crews to arrive and cut power to downed lines
impeded their response to fires and other emergencies.
``They do not respond to an emergency situation fast
enough,'' said Enfield Fire Chief Edward Richards. ``An
hour is just not acceptable - it's just not - and I've
spoken to the regional manager of CL&P and told him so.''
Last summer, Richards said, a truck sheared off a utility
pole in Enfield, bringing down live wires. The driver was
killed, but police and firefighters had to wait an hour
for a utility crew to arrive and cut power before they
could check the man's condition.
Former Cheshire Fire Chief Chris Bowman is harshly
critical of CL&P's response time. He has complained to
state utility regulators that CL&P's slow response to a
fire April 10 jeopardized the lives of more than 50
firefighters.
Bowman took his complaint to the state Department of
Public Utility Control. In the midst of a state
investigation into the complaint, CL&P announced last
summer a new system designed to improve response time by
flagging top-priority calls at its dispatch center.
``When I heard about what happened in Somers, I was beyond
words,'' Bowman said. ``It's just what I was afraid of.
It's just what we tried to prevent.''
The state department is also investigating the
circumstances of Arnone's death. Until the agency
completes its investigation, CL&P will not discuss whether
the new system was in use when Arnone was killed while
fighting a house fire during a severe snowstorm. The
department plans to complete its investigation of the
Somers case by March 8.
``CL&P keeps coming up with new excuses every time they
don't keep up their end, but it all boils down to saving
costs for them,'' Bowman said. ``I'll tell you this, I
hope they have a better answer than saying they weren't
prepared for the storm. This storm wasn't a surprise. They
were supposed to have all their manpower and equipment on
standby and ready to go.
``My heart goes out to that chief in Somers,'' he said.
``We would have done the same thing they did. We're sworn
to protect the lives and property of the community.''
In Deep River last month, town officials complained that
it took the utility 86 minutes to shut off power to a
flooded building on Main Street after a water pipe burst.
``Why does it take the power company an hour-and-a-half?''
asked Chip Adams, a spokesman for the Deep River Fire
Department. ``They should know that when we call it's
because it is an emergency.''
Trying its best
CL&P insists it does the best it can to respond to
emergencies, often under difficult circumstances such as
those of the Dec. 7-8 storm when Arnone was killed. That
storm's wet, heavy snow caused 250,000 CL&P customers to
lose power.
``There's a lot of call for us to have the same response
time that any emergency organization has,'' said Myra
Humphries, a spokeswoman for Northeast Utilities, parent
company of CL&P. The difference, she said, is that fire,
police and ambulance companies are organized to respond to
emergencies 24 hours a day.
``Without having that level of staffing, we can never be
as fast as they are,'' Humphries said.
Line crews that are called to work after hours must travel
from home to one of CL&P's regional centers, pick up a
truck and equipment, then go to the scene of the
emergency.
``We are working with local officials to try to address
their concerns,'' Humphries said. ``Our saying that we
can't put a 10- or 15- minute window on it does not mean
it's not important to us.''
Humphries said CL&P offers training seminars for
firefighters and police on how to secure and safely manage
downed electrical lines until a power company crew
arrives.
Some fire chiefs say they understand the constraints on
CL&P, and that their departments have a strict policy of
staying clear of damaged power lines until the utility
confirms they are de-energized.
In recommending the $1,000 penalty against the Somers Fire
Department, the state Department of Labor cited the
department for failing to keep firefighters ``free from
recognized hazards'' that could cause death or serious
harm.
The fine prompted Pagani to adopt a policy requiring
Somers firefighters to await confirmation from CL&P that
power has been disconnected before they approach a
building with downed wires. Other departments already have
such a policy.
``It's always been our policy,'' said East Hartford
Assistant Fire Chief Brian Rykowski, ``that if there's a
wire down, until the power company representative is
standing next to the incident commander and says it's
dead, we treat it as if it's live.''
Other fire commanders said the Labor Department penalty
against Somers has prompted a general review of department
policies, although none, including Pagani, suggested it
would inhibit a timely attack on a burning structure when
human lives are at stake.
``I'm sure every fire chief is thinking about this in the
back of his mind,'' said John Duffy, chief of the fire
company at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks.
``You're going to see a combined effort for everybody to
step back and take a look at every standard operating
procedure that there is. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes
a tragedy before we do this.''
Staffing questions
In the Aronone case, CL&P dispatchers chose to send a crew
to the Enfield substation to interrupt power to the fire
site in Somers, several miles away, because heavy snowfall
made travel difficult.
The power was cut about 2 a.m., 24 minutes after Arnone's
death. Somers fire officials thought the power had been
cut much earlier; a CL&P report acknowledges that the
department's first shutoff call came in at 12:55 a.m.
Despite the adverse weather conditions that night,
department officials say CL&P was unreasonably slow to
respond.
Officials in other towns agreed.
In Suffield, Fire Chief Tom Bellmore, First Selectman
Roland Dowd and other officials wrote to CL&P seeking a
commitment to a 10- to 15-minute response time for
emergencies. They also asked the utility to let workers
take company trucks home so they could be called out
quicker after regular work hours.
Both ideas were rejected by CL&P.
Todd Tuomi, CL&P regional manager for Tolland County, said
the utility could not make special arrangements for one
town and not for its whole service area, which includes
1.1 million customers in Connecticut.
Dowd blamed the power company's recent corporate
downsizing for cutting back field crews available for
emergencies.
Northeast Utilities cut its work force by almost 20
percent between 1988 and 1993. The customer service
budget, for instance, was reduced by 30 percent when five
regional response centers were consolidated.
But CL&P says the number of line workers, splicers,
electricians and supervisors available for emergency
repairs actually rose. In 1996, the company had 828 on its
payroll, including 160 outside contractors available 24
hours a day, said Roger Zaklukiewicz, vice president for
transmission and distribution. The previous year there
were 683, in 1994 there were 690 and in 1993 there were
709.
In addition, the company has not reduced the maintenance
budget for its 13,000 miles of power lines, Zaklukiewicz
said. There was $75.3 million allotted for maintenance in
1996, up significantly from the $65 million to $68 million
spent annually during the previous four years.
Paul Olesen, head of the Department of Public Utility
Control's unit supervising electrical power service, said
CL&P has improved its emergency response time by
instituting the new flagging system, in which company
dispatchers record emergency calls from fire and police
agencies on cards specially marked for priority treatment.
That was prompted by two incidents in mid-1995. In the
first, in Morris, CL&P took nine hours to respond to a
call for assistance with downed wires. In the second, the
assistant chief of the Sharon Fire Department was
electrocuted when he grew impatient waiting for utility
crews and tried to disconnect a power line himself.
As far as setting more specific time standards for CL&P to
respond to emergencies, Olesen said, ``My own personal
feelings - I don't think it's appropriate.'
Courant Correspondent Don Stacom and Courant Staff Writer
Susan E. Kinsman contributed to this story.
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Another update....
The Dept. of Utility Controls (DPUC) has come out with its report on
the incident. Basically, there were several issues that come to light.
My comments are denoted by >>.
1) CT Light & Power (CL&P) did not realize the magnitude of the storm
that was coming in that night, so they did not have many crews
available.
>> Pretty much everyone feels that this is a bunch of baloney.
>> Everyone in the area knew a big storm was coming in and was prepared
>> for it. Most departments were on standby, and certainly CL&P could
>> have called in extra crews in the hours between when it started
>> snowing and when the incident occurred.
2) There was a crew in the town of Enfield (next town over) that was
having their dinner break when the call from our dispatch center
came in for the power to be cut. However, it was not dispatched
as an emergency, so they did not respond until 20 minutes later
when they had finished their meal.
>> There is an issue here about how the call came into CL&P from our
>> dispatch center and how it was paged to the work crew. I have a
>> serious problem with the crew being allowed to finish their dinner
>> if there is a working house fire on-going. There will be further
>> investigation into this matter.
3) Even if the work crew had responded immediately, they probably would
not have reached the power substation in time to turn off the power
before our firefighter was electricuted
>> The real issue here is that if the crew had been toned properly and
>> had responded immediately, they could have easily (in my opinion)
>> have reached the substation to turn off the power in time. They
>> only had to travel approximately 4-5 miles and would have had
>> 30+ minutes to do so. I mean, I covered a good 7 miles from one
>> end of our town to the other while responding to the call, had to
>> go around trees, use other roads, etc., and still made it in
>> 15-20 minutes.
So the fact is that the DPUC did not find the utility company at fault
in any way. This is a real problem for our department and for many
other departments in the area who have had similar issues with CL&P.
There will be a meeting this Monday night with representatives from
CL&P, fire chiefs from 40 other departments, and various town and state
representatives. We will not be there to bash the utility, but to try
to work out a way that they can better respond to our calls for help.
- Gary
P.S. There continues to be constant reminders of this incident. The
department is about to receive an award from the Hartford Courant
Newspaper for volunteerism. Another award is being presented to
Craig post-humously(sp?) from an EMS point of view. There are
other various things that have been going on in the past months
since the incident occurred.
For myself, I have pretty well moved passed the day-to-day
rememberances, but for some of the others in the department it
is hard to let go with these daily reminders.
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