August 22, 2021

Tropical Storm Henri Bears Down on New England, Me

And it seems like the region’s largest power utility is once again unprepared.

John Minchillo/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

I’m writing to you from southern New England, where Tropical Storm Henri is due to make landfall in the next several hours. We’ve prepared the best we can: cleared the storm drains of debris, charged all our devices, picked up some emergency supplies, the whole bit.

Forecasts here are calling for an intense, soaking rain—6 or more inches in some areas—and winds that could reach as high as 75 mph. That’s bad enough, but when you add on top of that the 4 to 5 inches of rain that flooded basements and stranded motorists on Thursday, you can see why folks here are primed for swampy conditions, downed trees, and blackouts. Especially blackouts.

As it turns out, the region’s biggest power utility, Eversource, hasn’t inspired much confidence over the years, despite prep porn tweets like this one:

On Saturday, the company said that 50 to 69 percent of its 1.25 million customers in Connecticut could lose power. Not only that, but the effort to get things back online could take between 8 and 21 days.

Losing power sucks. Losing power ahead of a super-humid heat wave sucks extra hard. Losing power for up to three weeks because your famously unprepared utility company is potentially unprepared again? Stares out window at coming storm, resists blowing the shit out of emergency whistle.

That’s right: Eversource doesn’t exactly have a great track record. In fact, earlier this year, state regulators proposed the maximum fine possible—$30 million—for the company’s failure to prepare for and respond to Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020. (Eversource and another fined utility, United Illuminating, have appealed the decision.)

So…I guess we’ll see how it goes? Here’s hoping I don’t end up looking like this dude come tomorrow.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate