UI Visits Municipal Leaders for Annual Storm Preparedness Meetings

Company reinforces restoration priorities, safety protocols, and community coordination ahead of summer storm season

The UI team meets with Stratford officials for their annual storm meeting (Left to right: Jermaine Atkinson, Stratford Fire Chief; Ed DelMonte, UI Operations/Incident Commander; Larry Ciccarelli, Stratford Emergency Management Director; Tom Cariglio, UI Key Account Manager).

ORANGE, Conn. - March 27, 2026 - United Illuminating (UI), a subsidiary of Avangrid, announced today their Key Account Management team kicked off the annual Storm Meetings with municipal leaders, held in all 17 towns and cities the company serves. This series of meetings provides an opportunity for UI to share priorities, processes, and procedures for storm events, and for municipal leaders to learn from and collaborate with UI to ensure quick and safe power restoration during storms.

"Strong storm response starts with strong partnerships," said Frank Reynolds, President & CEO of UI. "Visiting each of these municipalities gives us the chance to align with local leaders, share our priorities, and ensure we're all working from the same playbook when severe weather hits. By working closely with municipal officials, we can respond faster and keep communities informed every step of the way. Together, we're building a safer and more resilient system for every community we serve."

The Storm Meetings typically include UI's Electric Operations, Vegetation Management, and Emergency Operations teams, as well as municipal leaders such as the Mayor/First Selectman, Emergency Operations Director, Chief of Fire, Chief of Police, and the Director of Public Works. Each year, UI meets with each of the 17 municipalities ahead of the summer storm season. Representatives from UI detail event level classifications, which determine estimated number of outages and restoration times, followed by restoration priorities, which establish that during a storm event, UI prioritizes road clearing and deenergizing downed lines over restoring businesses and residences. Meeting participants also review locations that each municipality chooses for UI to treat as Priority 1 for restoration during an outage, often including hospitals, nursing home facilities, and other locations in which an outage has significant community impact.

UI's top priority during storms is "make safe functions," in which blocked roads are cleared of any downed wires to prevent safety risk to the public. Next, the UI team provides an overview of the Municipal Dashboard, which provides officials with accurate, up-to-date information on outages and Estimated Restoration Times (ERTs). The team then reviews the role of municipal liaisons during storm events, who facilitate communications between UI and municipalities. Finally, the Vegetation Management team presents on how maintaining the 8-foot distance between trees and electric infrastructure, known as the Utility Protection Zone (UPZ), helps prevent outages during storm events.

"Establishing strong communication across the company, as well as externally, is key to preparing for and responding to weather events of all kinds," said Chuck Eves, Vice President of Electric Operations at UI. "Each year, we continue to invest in infrastructure, training, and partnerships to ensure safe and fast response so UI customers can rely on fewer outages and quicker restoration. We are proud of our commitment to reliability and safety for both our customers and our employees, and we are ready for anything this year brings."

So far this month, UI has held Storm Meetings with municipal officials from East Haven, Derby, Stratford, Easton, and North Haven. Storm Meetings will continue over the coming weeks and months with municipal officials from Fairfield, Bridgeport, Ansonia, Shelton, Woodbridge, Milford, Orange, Hamden, Trumbull, West Haven, New Haven, and North Branford.

For more information on UI's storm response efforts, including signing up for "Outage Alerts," please visit https://www.uinet.com/safety/stormsafety/storminformation.

Media Contact:

Angela Baccaro

[email protected]