Waltham city councilors furious state won't investigate Eversource after 2 damaging power surges
WALTHAM -- Two Waltham city councilors are calling on the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to investigate Eversource after numerous power surges caused damage to homes.
The surges came in October of 2022, and in June of this year, resulting in property damages. This includes a house that caught on fire. The homeowners live on the bottom floor, while their tenants live above. They were not home at the time, their tenants scrambled to safety.
"He happened to be sleeping, and my other tenant was throwing rocks at the window to finally break the window to wake him up. He got out safely," said homeowner Raimondo Alonge. "Never expect you leave the house a short time, come back and you have no home, so I became homeless."
Alonge and his family were living out of a hotel for weeks. He owned the house for six years, but it has been in his family for roughly 20.
"I want to get compensated and put my house exactly back to where it was," said Alonge.
He was part of the June power surge, however numerous other families were impacted in October. City Councilor Jonathan Paz says 300 families were affected. Lizzie Gelles had thousands of dollars in damages to her home. She claims Eversource only offered her a cash value reimbursement which takes into account depreciation.
"Our furnace went. Our pellet stove went. We had a small refrigerated that went," said Gelles. "The upside is no one lost their life, but that's two times. There's no guarantee the next time."
"We were affected by both power surges," said fellow Waltham resident Kali Patrick. "I was on a Zoom call and my computer went pop. The outlet went pop. I had smoke coming out, and I freaked out. We had just finished upgrading our electrical panel from a 100 to a 200-amp panel. My concern is that if we hadn't had this whole house surge protector put in, what could have happened?"
In a letter from the DPU, Eversource claims the issues stem from a rodent infestation in an electrical conduit. It led to damaged control cables that impacted breakers. After the company outlined their solutions, DPU decided not to launch a full investigation.
City Councilors and residents believe this isn't enough. They say surges and outages have been happening too frequently in the past 10 years. Councilors say there was another outage Monday night.
"How many firefighters do we have to send in before Eversource does basic maintenance of this system," said Councilor Paz. "We demand that the Department of Public Utilities actually move forward with a public investigation of Eversource. We demand a transparent process from Eversource."
"I don't think these are a fluke or tied to a maintenance issue. We need a formal investigation," adds Waltham City Councilor Colleen Bradley-MacArthur.
Eversource responded with this statement to WBZ:
"We have been in constant contact with Waltham city officials and the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) providing detailed information about the over-voltages, our findings following a thorough investigation and examination of equipment, and our plans to help prevent similar issues in the future. The DPU was satisfied with the findings of our investigation and the remedies we proposed to improve the safety and reliability of the local electric system."
In addition to the investigation, the councilors also want all damages to be reimbursed in full. At a town hall meeting in June, Paz says numerous residents claim Eversource will not pay them back in full.
