Thousands without power as heavy rain, high winds slam CT
Thousands are without power as heavy rain and high winds made their way into Connecticut on Sunday and continued hammering the state on Monday.
As of about 10 a.m. Monday, Eversource reported that 82,730 customers across the state were without power. This included 3,216 customers in Cheshire, 2,018 in Middletown, 1,928 customers in Newtown and 3,841 in Stafford. The power company serves 1,308,253 in Connecticut.
Another 1,572 United Illuminating customers across Connecticut were without power as of about 10 a.m. Most of those outages — 366 — were reported in Woodbridge.
About 70 public school systems across the state either canceled school Monday or were operating on at least a two-hour delay. School districts that were closed included those in Avon, Bristol, Canton, Cheshire Glastonbury, Simsbury and many others outside of the Greater Hartford area. In East Hartford, Pitkin Elementary School was closed on Monday.
The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch that will remain in effect until 7 p.m. Monday for portions of the Hartford, Tolland and Windham counties and a flood warning for these counties until 4 p.m.
“Flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and other low-lying and flood-prone locations is imminent or occurring. Streams continue to rise due to excess runoff from earlier rainfall,” the National Weather Service said in a bulletin.
The National Weather Service also issued a flood warning until late Monday for the Farmington River in the area of Unionville.
“Flooding is expected to spread across Meadow Road in the ‘Meadows’ section of Farmington,” an NWS bulletin stated. “Some low-lying areas along Route 4 may also begin to experience flooding.”
According to the NWS, somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 inches of rain had fallen in Hartford County by 12:30 p.m. Monday with an additional inch of rain possible. This comes just a week after heavy rains pummeled the state.
“Given similar rain totals fell just a week ago, soils remain saturated and rivers remain swollen, yielding the potential for renewed flooding risks,” the weather service said.
Areas expected to see flooding include Manchester, East Hartford, Enfield, Glastonbury, Vernon, Wethersfield, Mansfield, South Windsor, Windham, Plainfield, Rocky Hill, Willimantic, Killingly, Burrillville, Ellington, Tolland, Coventry, Stafford, Somers and East Windsor.
A wind advisory will remain in effect until 4 p.m. Monday in the Hartford, Tolland and Windham counties. The storm as of Monday morning had brought down several trees and wires across the state, closing numerous roads.
As the heavy rains fall, southeast winds are expected to blow up to 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph, the NWS said.
According to the Guilford Police Department, a tree came down on a police cruiser early Monday and smashed the windshield while an officer was inside. The officer was not injured, police said.
Guilford police also said more than a dozen roads were closed Monday morning because of either downed trees or wires or flooding.
Eversource said this week that they were anticipating possible power outages and that they were bringing in additional out-of-state crews and positioning line crews across Connecticut to respond to any damages or outages.
“The high winds expected with this storm combined with more rain, saturating the ground further, have the potential to bring down trees and limbs onto electric lines and equipment causing outages, and we’re planning accordingly,” said Steve Sullivan, Eversource’s president of electric operations in Connecticut in a statement. “Crews will be staged around the state with a heavy emphasis in the areas expecting the highest winds — in the eastern and southeastern part of the state — so they’re ready to restore power as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
The power company warned that people and pets should stay away from downed wires. Outages can be reported to Eversource through eversource.com or by calling 800-286-2000. Downed wires should be reported to 911.
Eversource has more storm preparedness tips available at Eversource.com.
