Henri closes in on Connecticut
State of emergency declared; Eversource predicts up to 69% of customers will lose power
“We may not have seen anything of this magnitude in many years, maybe even 30 or 40 years. This is going to be difficult, it’s going to take a lot of patience.”
— Rick Fontana, New Haven emergency management director
Hurricane Henri remains on track to slam into Connecticut on Sunday morning and is expected to bring severe flooding, very high winds and historic power outages across the entire state.
Hurricane warnings are in effect along the shoreline from New Haven east through Rhode Island to Westport, Massachusetts, and tropical storm warnings are in effect across the remainder of the state and much of Southern New England and New York.
Some isolated evacuations, including some mandatory evacuation orders, began Saturday afternoon in particularly flood-prone portions of shoreline towns where officials prepared for a “direct hit” and pleaded with residents to hunker down once the potentially historic storm reaches Connecticut’s shores Sunday morning.
“This is going to be a team effort, this is going to be a very dangerous storm,” New Haven Emergency Management Director Rick Fontana said Saturday afternoon from the city’s emergency operations center. “We may not have seen anything of this magnitude in many years, maybe even 30 or 40 years. This is going to be difficult, it’s going to take a lot of patience.”
Utility officials project 50% to 69% of Eversource’s 1.25 million customers statewide will lose power, a sharp increase from its projections of 30% to 49% on Friday, and officials have warned it could take eight to 21 days to complete restoration efforts after the storm ends.
“I think you should prepare for seven days of outage,” Eversource CEO Joe Nolan said Saturday evening. “It’s just not relenting.”
Forecasters predict the storm will strengthen overnight and is expected to “be at or near hurricane strength” when it finally reaches the coasts of Long Island and Connecticut on Sunday
morning, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Tropical-storm-force winds of 70 to 80 mph are expected to reach Connecticut’s shores by daybreak and heavy rain will begin to fall in the hours before the storm makes landfall in the afternoon and marches across central or eastern Connecticut into Monday morning.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal urged residents to prepare for what emergency management officials have called a “perfect storm” of high winds, heavy rainfall and several feet of storm surge — the last of which may only be compounded by Sunday’s midday high tide.
“I am impressed talking to local officials around the state about their preparations; this may not be a perfect storm, but it’s going to be close to it,” Blumenthal said. “The alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear because this storm is going to pack a powerful punch.”
Gov. Ned Lamont and local emergency management officials across the state begged residents to stay put once the storm begins to allow first responders and utility crews to focus on helping those most in need and safely beginning a long restoration process.
Recreation areas across the state have been shut down ahead of the storm. Amtrak, Metro North and CT Transit announced suspensions in service.
“I know this is the last 10 days of August and you’re all looking for a bit of relaxation after what’s been a pretty tough year and a half,” Gov. Ned Lamont said from the state’s emergency operations center late Saturday afternoon. “But we’ve got a little bit more to go and I want you to really err on the side of caution for the next three or four or five days and we’re going to get through this together.”
What to expect
Hurricane Henri was upgraded from a tropical storm Saturday morning and gathered strength as it tracked slightly north-northeast along the eastern seaboard throughout the day, according to the National Weather Service.
Forecasters expected the storm to continue to strengthen overnight before taking a left turn to the west early Sunday, putting Long Island and Connecticut squarely in the storm’s sights.
Storm surges of 3 to 5 feet and increasing winds will be among the first impacts to the shoreline early Sunday morning and heavy rain will fall in the hours after.
Winds of 75 to 80 mph along the shoreline will begin to cause power outages early in the day and sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph inland, with gusts up to 50 mph or more, are expected to cause an extraordinary number of downed trees and power lines across the entire state as the day wears on, officials have said.
Most of the state will receive 4 to 6 inches of rain over the course of the day, with some localized amounts of 8 or even 10 inches, which will cause flooding in many low-lying areas, according to the weather service. Because of the full moon, an especially high tide at midday could further exacerbate coastal flooding.
The storm is expected to make landfall around 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., most likely along Long Island and the Connecticut shoreline between New Haven and New London, according to the latest forecasts Saturday evening.
The storm will churn north across the state overnight into Monday, with strong winds and heavy rain continuing throughout, before it is pushed northeast across Massachusetts and the rest of New England throughout Monday and into Tuesday, according to the hurricane center.
If Hurricane Henri makes landfall in Connecticut, it will be the first hurricane to do so since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
“We only have so many threats of this magnitude that ever crop up during a year or even a decade,” said
Bob Maxon, a meteorologist at NBC Connecticut. “People in their 20s and 30s have never experienced anything like the potential that’s there for Sunday and Monday.”
Is the state ready?
Emergency management officials will be running the storm response from the state’s emergency operations center and Lamont on Saturday formally asked President Joe Biden for pre-landfall emergency declaration to provide federal assistance for the storm response. He also called in 200 members of the Connecticut National Guard to prepare teams and specialized equipment to the support the response.
Members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency already began staging supplies across the region on Saturday, including food, medicine and generators from the military base in Westover, Massachusetts, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. FEMA’s personnel will be able to act as “boots on the ground” support in the immediate aftermath of the storm late Sunday and into Monday, he said.
Local first responders and thousands of utility crews staged across the state throughout the day Saturday as grocery stores were packed with residents buying final supplies and long lines stretched around blocks for gas pumps that were beginning to empty in some places by the middle of the afternoon.
United Illuminating, which serves communities on the shoreline from Bridgeport to New Haven, also announced it is prepositioning crews and equipment in advance of the storm while thousands of Eversource crews and contractors staged at Crystal Mall in Waterford, the Pratt & Whitney airfield in East Hartford and the Foxwoods Employee Lot in Ledyard.
“We have amassed resources here in Connecticut like we have never done for any other storm,” Nolan said. “I can promise you our customers will get their power back on as quickly as is safely possible, given the current circumstances. But I want to let everyone know this will be a devastating storm with significant infrastructure damage, which is going to require a lot of attention.”
The utility’s dire projection that as many 875,000 customers could lose power and that restorations could take up to three weeks to complete stands in stark contrast to its preparation ahead of Tropical Storm Isaias — during which about 1 million customers lost power and some remained in the dark for nine days, earning the utility the ire of residents, public officials, creditors and regulators.
Connecticut’s top elected officials reported, with some hints of skepticism, that Eversource at least appeared ready to respond to the storm, but Blumenthal warned that the utility must prove it has learned from that experience with its response to Henri.
“Eversource owes the people of Connecticut the truth in real time,” Blumenthal said. “Prompt communication and the capacity to restore power and those lines safely and swiftly. We hope that they are indeed as prepared as they say they are, but the truth will be and the test will be in action, not just words.”
Evacuations, mass transit shutdowns
Multiple feet of storm surges expected to accompany the storm also prompted several sets of evacuation orders across the coast, including mandatory evacuations of several blocks in Groton and in Madison for most residents south of Interstate 95.
Officials in New Haven, Groton and Old Saybrook issued voluntary evacuations for residents and have asked residents to prepare to stay with family or at a hotel first before turning to town-offered shelters.
In New Haven, the voluntary evacuations so far include three areas on the east shore, specifically south of Myron Street; along the Mill River in Fair Haven, specifically at Haven Street and John Murphy Drive; and at City Point, specifically along South Water Street, Mayor Justin Elicker said. In Groton, the evacuations so far include Shore Avenue, Beach Pond Road, Pine Island Road and Jupiter Point Road.
Amtrak is shutting down service on the Northeast corridor between New York and Boston as of Sunday, as well as on the Springfield Line between New Haven and Springfield, Mass.
Metro-North announced it would suspend service beginning 4 a.m. Sunday and that the last train on the line from Grand Central Terminal will leave at 1:53 a.m. Sunday before the storm starts. All CT Transit bus service also will be suspended until at least 3 a.m. Monday and the state judicial branch announced jury service would be canceled Monday.
All state campgrounds closed at 4 p.m. Saturday through at least Monday afternoon and the Metropolitan District announced that its recreation areas around area reservoirs and lakes in West Hartford, Bloomfield, Barkhamsted and Hartland would all be closed for the storm.
Hartford experienced tremendous flooding on Thursday when the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred dumped 5 inches of rain in a matter of hours and Mayor Luke Bronin said the city is preparing for potentially even more severe impacts from Hurricane Henri.
The city’s public works crews already have been working since Thursday’s storm to clear drains and catch basins to try to prevent flooding and nearly every public works employee is expected to be called in to work by 7 a.m. Sunday ahead of Henri’s biggest impacts. Police and fire crews also will be throughout the city ahead of and during the storm in the event water rescues are required and to secure downed trees, power lines and flooded streets.
Top officials have pleaded with residents to prepare in advance of the storm and to shelter in place once it begins early Sunday.
“Once this storm starts to hit, just stay put. Stay off the roads, don’t move around,” Bronin said Saturday. “Plan to play some board games or pick some good movies to watch. Unless you have to be out and driving around, just stay off the roads, stay home, stay put, let our teams do their work of responding.”
What’s causing the extreme weather?
Connecticut has had an eventful summer of weather, with several heat waves, a wave of storms in mid-July and now a potential hurricane.
“June was third-hottest June in 116 years, July was the third-wettest July in 116 years, so you went from the heat to the wetness,” Furey said. “We just had flooding rains yesterday and now we’re going to bring Henri in.”
Maxon said the heavy rainfall in July, plus the storm Thursday, could exacerbate the threat posed by Tropical Storm Henri.
“You throw [the storm] in with the saturated soil because of the rainy July we had, the third-wettest July on record, we had substantial and significant flooding yesterday, and we’re going to try to throw four-to-six inches of rain into this situation?” Maxon said. “That can lead to a lot of freshwater flooding, power outages and tree damage.”
Experts say extreme weather events are likely to become more common in Connecticut due to the effects of climate change.