Some schools closed for a 2nd day

Eversource officials said they brought in more than 200 additional utility crews to help restore power

Early Tuesday afternoon, notes with a large number of phone messages from residents without power covered a portion of Stonington First Selectman Rob Simmons’ desk.

“I can’t explain why your neighbors have power and you don’t,” he told one man who lives on Mistuxet Avenue in Mystic. “But your neighborhood is now Eversource’s No. 1 priority.”

Simmons was returning the calls after spending the morning meeting with police and Town Hall staff, talking to the Eversource representative assigned to the town and touring the town with police Chief J. Darren Stewart.

Late Monday night, 3,438 customers, or 43 percent of the town, were still without power. As of Tuesday at 3 p.m., that number had been reduced to 1,982 customers, or 25 percent of the town.

Eversource was busy restoring power in other area towns as well, although for a second day many towns closed their schools.

In Ledyard, the damage wrought by the storm was equal to what Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy did to the town in 2011 and 2012, respectively, according to an assessment Tuesday by Eversource.

Mayor Fred Allyn III postponed town-sanctioned trick-or-treating until Friday and urged residents to wait until then or visit other area Halloween events Tuesday night.

“Do NOT trick or treat tonight,” he wrote in an afternoon Facebook post. “The progress is slow today and I am not at all comfortable that it will be safe tonight.”

The storm knocked out power to 90 percent of the town’s customers. By Tuesday night, that number was down to about 3,000, according to Eversource’s outage map.

East Lyme, Groton, Ledyard, Montville, North Stonington and Salem were among the towns that canceled school for a second day, as significant outages persisted in those towns.

Eversource officials said Monday they had brought in more than 200 additional utility crews from Florida, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee and New York to help with restoration.

By 6 p.m. Tuesday, Norwich Public Utilities had restored power to all but 110 customers. Early in the morning Tuesday, 700 customers were still without power. The peak of outages occurred Monday afternoon, when 3,400 customers were without power. Norwich utilities officials were working to restore power by 10 p.m. Tuesday to customers on the following streets: Asylum, Elwood, Hammond Bushnell and Crescent and Grant Court.

In Stonington, Simmons said Eversource has prioritized a list of five neighborhoods with the most outages that the utility initially would address. The first, West Broad Street in downtown Pawcatuck, saw power restored Tuesday. The other areas are Mistuxet Avenue; Deans Mill Road, where Deans Mill School remains without power; Flanders Road and Pequot Trail. Major intersections, such as the one at Route 1 and North Water Street, remained without working traffic lights.

In all, Simmons said the power company had 88 tickets, or areas where residents have reported that power is out or wires down, that needed to be addressed.

One of those was the intersection of Elm Street and Meadow Avenue, about 100 yards from Town Hall, where a massive tree fell on the power lines and remained suspended there. A crane was needed to lift the tree off the wires.

Simmons said Eversource is working around the clock to address the tickets. In some instances, he said the restoration process is inefficient, as tree-cutting crews show up but can’t do their work because Eversource has not yet shut off the power in some areas.

Asked if he thought Eversource was doing a good job in restoring power, Simmons hedged.

“I understand from my military background and experience that when you manage a crisis, you have to set priorities that are logical. There will always be some people who are not happy, that’s the way it is. They are trying to approach the problem in a reasonable and logical way and now are addressing the priorities,” he said.

This is the largest number of customers without power here since Superstorm Sandy five years ago. Since then, Eversource has done a great deal of work trimming trees in town to prevent outages.

Stonington has opened the police station and Human Services Building for those looking to charge phones and other devices. The municipal transfer station will be open Wednesday for the disposal of storm debris; it typically is closed on Wednesdays. The Mystic branch of the Ocean Community YMCA is offering residents the use of its showers and bathrooms.