Million in Northeast remain without power

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Frustrations grew yesterday as more than a million Northeastern homes and businesses went a fourth day without power after a freak weekend snowstorm, with many schoolchildren again staying home and some residents languishing in shelters that provided heat and meals.

Connecticut, the hardest-hit state, still had more than a half-million customers without power last evening, down from a peak of more than 800,000. Huge swaths of the state had also lost power for days to the remnants of Hurricane Irene in August, and residents were growing restless.

Ada Lachelier, 76, a retiree who sought warmth at the Conard High School shelter in West Hartford, said she would like to rally other customers of Connecticut Light & Power, the state's largest utility, to skip payment on their next two bills in protest of the delays.

"They'd finally listen if everyone said, 'Hey, the next bill is on you, CL&P, because you didn't come through when you should have,' " she said.

Lachelier and her friend, Janet Conley, have been spending their days at the shelter or at downtown businesses that have power. Each night they return home to feed pets, check on their houses and bundle up for a chilly night's sleep.

"I thought things would be better after Irene, but all they did was have meetings about it, as far as I can tell," said Conley, a yoga teacher from West Hartford. "It didn't seem to make a bit of difference this time."

Jeff Butler, president of CL&P, said the company understands people's frustrations and was on track to fix 99 percent of the remaining power failures by Sunday -- a full week after the storm.

New Jersey still had 167,000 homes and businesses without power last evening -- a far cry from the 700,000 in the dark during the height of the storm Saturday. In Maryland, utilities reported scattered outages -- a total of about 300, down from more than 40,000. More than 3 million people lost power from Maryland to Maine.