CVPS  completed its restoration efforts Sunday evening.  

Historic one-two-punch storm estimated to cost $3.6 million 

RUTLAND - After almost four full days of 16- and 18-hour shifts, crews have resolved more than 1,750 separate problems to CVPS's transmission and distribution system. Crews have restored 90,500 of the more than 91,700 CVPS customer outages caused by this past week's one-two punch snow and wind storm. Heavy snow over night produced additional outages today.

A "problem" could be anything from a single tree on a line to 20 sections of line on the ground.

More than 90 CVPS line workers, assisted by dozens of CVPS support staff and over 180 outside contract line and tree workers made excellent progress, leaving 1,200 CVPS customer outages left to be restored as of 5 p.m.

"We are finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is certainly slow-going as each repair at this point only turns on a handful of customers at a time," spokeswoman Christine Rivers said.  "This back-to-back storm has been nothing short of historic and record-breaking. We've seen more customer outages than any storm in our history, and initial estimates put recovery costs at about $3.6 million, making it one of the five most-expensive storms in CVPS history."

One crew in Windsor County reported it was taking all day to make repairs to a single section of line laden with tree damage, which would only restore power to about 18 customers.

"This has been a long but amazing restoration effort, and a very long week for many Vermonters," said Joe Kraus, senior vice president for engineering, operations and customer service. "We sincerely appreciate the support we've seen from our customers and the communities and businesses we serve. We want to thank our sister utilities here in Vermont, all the outside contract crews from across New England and Ontario, and Emergency Management and state officials for their continued support during our storm restoration efforts. I also want to thank our employees, who have devoted themselves to customers while putting their own lives on hold."

Most counties should be well cleaned up late tonight, but some customers in Bennington, Orange, Windsor and northern Windham counties will be without power until Sunday night. There may be a handful of one- and two-customer stragglers carrying into Monday.

PLEASE CALL 

As a precaution, CVPS asked customers who are still without power as of 9 a.m. Sunday to contact the company at 1-800-451-2877 to ensure they are listed in the outage management system. As restoration efforts draw toward an end, the company wants to assure that no one is left without power. 

If customers see that others in their neighborhood have power, but they do not, CVPS asks that those customers switch their breakers off and on to assure the problem is not localized inside their home. 

The company also reminded customers that while service lines or overhead wires that run from a pole to a house or business are the utility's responsibility, the service cable that runs along the side of the house is the customer's responsibility. 

If those service cables are damaged, customers should contact an electrician. The service bracket that attaches the service line to the house is generally maintained by CVPS. However, the weather head, attached to the service cable, which prevents water damage to the wiring, is maintained by the customer's electrician.