Weakened Henri drops inches of rain before leaving state
While Tropical Storm Henri’s path largely spared Connecticut from devastating outages, the drenching rain that flooded roads Sunday circled back Monday for a second hit.
Henri, which had been downgraded to a tropical depression, hung near the western border of the state before dropping rain to the east. Forecasters said it had the potential for another 1 to 3 inches, and issued flash
flood watches for the entire state.
Gov. Ned Lamont again stressed the dangers the new rain Monday posed for some in the state.
“The ground is so saturated with water that every inch of rain creates immediate floods and flash floods,” Lamont said. The state was tracking storms and potential runoff through the day to let local leaders know where the issues may crop up.
Despite the threat of flooding, there were fewer incidents Monday than the day before when roads flooded across towns in central Connecticut and Interstate 91 was closed in Hartford and Wallingford for water covering the lanes, according to National Weather Service reports.
On Monday, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection had crews monitoring dams to ensure they could withstand additional water.
The Connecticut National Guard kept high-wheeled evacuation teams stationed at nine armories across the state on Monday to respond to the latest threat from Henri.
“We are being diligent ... until the storm truly passes,” Adjutant Gen. Francis Evon said in an appearance with Lamont in Norwich. Teams had previously been stationed in eastern Connecticut and along the shoreline, but shifted west to respond to potential flooding along the Interstate 84 corridor, he said.
The track of the storm proved to limit Henri’s damage. While still a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, the storm started to track farther east.
The storm, forecasters said, then hit some cold water and lost strength. It was downgraded to a tropical storm before Henri’s center made landfall in Rhode Island, where Lamont said outages were nearly triple what Connecticut saw when it hit land.
Wind speeds were high in Rhode Island, with reports of gusts of 70 mph at Point Judith. The winds quickly lost strength and were about 50 mph when it moved into Connecticut. By the time the storm reached central Connecticut, winds were about 40 mph.
Much of the tree damage from winds was limited to eastern Connecticut, according to weather service reports. But the storm still packed powerful rain that spread throughout Connecticut.
While many towns and cities along the coast saw between 1 and 2 inches of rain from the storm, central and western Connecticut saw dramatically higher amounts.
Near Hartford, and other towns like Manchester and South Windsor, saw about 5 inches of rain Monday.
The storm came as Connecticut has been experiencing total precipitation this summer that is well above average. In July, most of Connecticut got about 6 inches more rain than in a typical year. Already in August, some parts of Connecticut have seen about 5 inches more rain than usual.
Much of that has fallen in less than a week between steady rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred last week and then Henri.
While heavy rains proved to be one of the most prolonged issues in Connecticut, much of the focus when the storm was heading toward Connecticut was on power outages.
Overall outages fell well below estimates from the power companies. Eversource, the state’s largest power company, made quick work of 60,000 outages during the storm.
By Monday afternoon, they had restored all but 1,800 outages, and most were expected to be cleared up by Tuesday. Eversource officials cautioned that some outages would take additional time given their complexity.
“The last outages of a large restoration like this are labor intensive and time consuming. We’re also watching the forecast with an eye on the additional thunderstorms expected [Monday],” said Craig Hallstrom, president of regional electric operations for Eversource. “These could cause more outages that our team will address as quickly and safely as possible until every home and business in the state has power back.”
United Illuminating, which provides powers to portions of Fairfield and New Haven counties, did not experience a surge of outages, given the new track of the storm.
Reflecting on the initial response to the storm, Lamont said much has changed since last year, which saw a tropical storm quickly sweep through Connecticut and cut power to 800,000 people.
“The decision making was not centralized, it was decentralized . ... I think that made a big difference in having twice as many people on the ground, deployed and ready to go,” Lamont said.
There were emergency operations centers across the state that, Lamont said, had direct connections to the power and telecommunications companies.
“It’s really important that utilities know that electricity is absolutely life giving. Last time was tough, power was out four, five, six days,” Lamont said, referencing last summer’s tropical storm. “You’ve got generators that are running out of juice . ... They’ve got to realize how absolutely vital it is we get this stuff up within 72 hours. Don’t underestimate the storm, overestimate it, so you’re prepared.”