If folks in Connecticut thought that the companies that make up Northeast Utilities didn't do an adequate job dealing with the two major storms in 2011, wait until they see what Massachusetts utility regulators did Tuesday morning in reaction to the widespread outages in that state last year.

Massachusetts regulators on Tuesday issued nearly $25 million in fines to three Bay State utilities, including NU subsidiaries Western Massachusetts Electric Co. and NStar, for their handling of Tropical Storm Irene and the pre-Halloween snow storm of 2011. The announcement of the fines comes after more than a year of investigation into how the utilities performed.

NStar was fined $4.1 million while WMECO was hit with a $2 million penalty. The largest fine was $18.7 million against National Grid .

Should Connecticut utility regulators have taken a stronger position on how NU's Connecticut Light and Power Co. subsidiary handled the two 2011 storms?