The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
After storm, vacant Yale building partially collapses
Nor’easter batters area
NEW HAVEN — A vacant Yale storage building on Sachem Street collapsed Friday night after heavy winds and rain tore through the Northeast.
Rick Fontana, director of emergency management, said the two-story, Yale-owned brick building had a partial collapse, sending bricks as far as the street moments after fans exited a Yale University hockey game against Quinnipiac at the nearby Ingalls Rink.
Fontana said the building was already fenced off and vacant, and the New Haven building official has ordered it to come down.
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said the building at 36 Sachem St. was unoccupied and no one was injured. Sachem Street is closed between Whitney Avenue and Prospect Street.
“We have been working the storm with an activation of the emergency operations center yesterday,” Fontana said in an email. He said there had been some flooding and at one point the city had more than 1,600 outages of power from 36 incidents.
The incidents were related to trees on wires, cars and houses, he said.
A man had to be extricated from his car Friday morning near the New Haven Fire Department’s East Battalion headquarters after a tree fell on top of it, trapping him inside.
The Branford Fire Department said on Facebook around 5 p.m. Friday it had responded to more than 42 storm related incidents, predominantly caused by trees on houses, cars and wires, but only minor injuries were reported. Similarly, the Orange Volunteer Fire Department shared images Saturday of a home partially destroyed by a downed tree on Friday; the department reported no one was injuried.
The North Haven Fire Department reported on Facebook that downed wires caused a structure fire Friday. On Friday, around 4 p.m., it reported 316 households were without power, and the number was expected to increase.
“We expect to restore the vast majority of customers by Sunday at 9 p.m.,” Eversource tweeted Saturday morning. “For a small number of our customers in the hardest hit areas, our work will continue into the later evening hours tomorrow. We appreciate your patience as we complete this important work.