The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Thousands lose power in storm
MIDDLETOWN — One hundred percent of Eversource customers in Chester and 95 percent in Killingworth were without power throughout the day Thursday as cleanup began following the powerful nor’easter that walloped the area late Wednesday into Thursday morning.
Those totals declined by evening as Eversource crews made significant progress throughout the state and region, with 1,711 Chester households without power and 2,163 customers in Killingworth still affected by 7 p.m. Some towns saw outages decline throughout the day and rise by evening.
“Public Works and first responders have been working all night to respond to emergency calls and track issues with power lines,” the town of Chester posted on its Facebook page Thursday morning. “There are at least a dozen problems with downed or compromised power lines and transformers, as well as trees down making many roads impassable. We
expect an extended repair and restoration period to come. More info will be posted as it becomes available.”
The storm hit lower Connecticut River Valley towns hard, as the dense, wet snow caused downed trees and weighed heavy on others that bowed under pressure.
By 7 p.m., 86 percent of Deep River customers were in the dark, and others, like Haddam (75 percent), East Haddam (70 percent), Westbrook (17 percent), Portland (20 percent), East Hampton (70 percent), Essex (45 percent), Middlefield (4 percent), Clinton (24 percent), Old Saybrook (21 percent) and Durham (4 percent) experienced significant outages, according to Eversource.
Power in Middletown (2 percent) and Cromwell (just under 1 percent) was minimally affected, according to Eversource.
Thursday night, Regional School District 17 in Haddam and Killingworth closed the entire district for Friday due to widespread outages.
“This will be a multi-day restoration effort. We have very similar damage across the state, with trees and power lines that all came down as a result of the saturated ground. Trees are weakened by now,” Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said Thursday.
This nor’easter comes on the heels of Friday’s storm, which left thousands of customers without power. Linemen from across the country have been aiding Eversource with efforts to restore power since then, Gross said.
The company said expected to announce a statewide estimated time of restoration by Friday, when the majority of customers will be restored, with town-by-town estimates shared by the end of the day.
“We’re seeing extensive damage. The protocol is we take care of emergency issues first — 911 calls — then we move to essential services, like water treatment plants and hospitals. We work to get the greatest number of customers online at the same time,” he said. “We rerouted power to affected areas where we could.