Top officials from Eversource defended the electric, gas and water utility's response to Tropical Storm Isaias, which knocked out power to about 1 million homes and businesses across Connecticut this month, arguing Thursday it was well-prepared and has taken steps to improve its reliability since prior major storms.

CEO Jim Judge told state legislators he understands many customers are angry about the company's response, but said the storm turned out to be “more impactful and widespread than anybody expected,” creating three times the maximum damage that had been projected.

“Nobody, nobody that I’m aware of, predicted that Connecticut people would see a storm with impacts significantly bigger than Superstorm Sandy or Irene,” Judge said, noting there was a “huge logistics effort” to restore power that was made more challenging because of coronavirus safety protocols.

Some customers lost power for more than a week.

“We had more line crews working the restoration effort than we've ever had before on an event on our system — more than Irene, more than Sandy and more than the October 2011 storm," he said, adding how the number of restoration crews was tripled within the first 48 hours after Isaias hit Connecticut on Aug. 4.

Judge was one of several top Eversource executives who testified during a virtual informational hearing, originally organized by the General Assembly's Energy and Technology Committee to examine a controversial electric rate increase that occurred shortly before the storm hit.

Connecticut regulators in July ordered Eversource, the state’s largest electric utility, to temporarily suspend a rate increase that appeared in customers’ July bills and immediately restore rates to their June 30 levels so an investigation could be conducted into whether customers were being overcharged.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, which is also examining Eversource's storm response, had received numerous letters and complaints from customers shocked by their larger-than-normal electric bills, some twice as much as they usually pay. Eversource has said they were driven primarily by a significant increase in summer energy use and two recent delivery fee increases.

On Thursday, Judge said the average bill increased by $62, with $55 of that attributed to increased usage when many people were working from home during hot weather.

But much of the discussion during Thursday's hearing focused on Eversource's response to the storm. Legislators accused the company of not communicating well with municipal officials about restoration efforts, not giving restoration crews clear orders on where they were needed, and creating a perception that the company cares more about shareholders than customers.

There were also concerns raised that not enough improvements have been made since a state panel released a report in 2012 that included dozens of recommendations for improving emergency preparation in Connecticut, including improved worst-case planning and staffing by the state’s utilities.

“It is very frustrating to read some of their findings that could have been easily applied to the storm response here. So what's changing with this company in the culture?" asked Rep. David Arconti, D-Danbury, the committee's co-chairman.

"These are the same things that have been said for the past few years," he added.

State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, the committee's other co-chairman, said legislators hope to enact some immediate reforms that strengthen regulators' powers and send a “clear message to all the ratepayers in the state and to the utilities" in a planned, upcoming special session. He said larger changes will likely be addressed when the General Assembly is schedule to convene its regular session in January.

“To me, it felt like they were relatively flat-footed and that their response was not great,” Needleman said of Eversource during an interview with The Associated Press.