High Winds, Heavy Rains Bring Power Outages

By Andrew Gorosko

High winds and heavy rains that hit town during the day and into the night on Tuesday resulted in 287 customers of the Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) being without electricity at the peak of the local outages at about 9 pm.

The 287 scattered outages represent about 2.6 percent of the electric utility’s 10,905 customers in Newtown. In other words, about 1 in 40 customers were without power at the peak of the outages,   

Between 10:09 am and 8:31 pm on Tuesday, local volunteer fire companies responded to nine fire calls involving utility lines that had fallen.

Response locations included the intersection of Berkshire Road and Chestnut Hill Road, the intersection of Dinglebrook Lane and Driftway Drive, Boggs Hill Road, High Rock Road, Brushy Hill Road, Scudder Road, Huntingtown Road, Sugar Hill Road, and Eden Hill Road. 

The outages started being reported about 4 pm, when 79 customers were without electricity, said CL&P spokesman Al Lara. By 5 pm, that number had grown to 151 outages.

After 9 pm, the number of outages dropped. Midday on Wednesday, there were 147 customers without electricity in Newtown, with restoration work proceeding.

As of midday Wednesday, outage areas included Walnut Tree Hill Road and its side streets, Shepard Hill Road, Checkerberry Lane, Mt Pleasant Road, Borough Lane, Eden Hill Road, and Old Hawleyville Road.

Mr Lara said that the “second wave” of the storm, which arrived overnight on Tuesday into Wednesday, took unexpectedly longer to pass through the state than had been anticipated.

 Southwest Connecticut took the most severe damage in the storm, but eastern Connecticut had damage that was more widespread, he said.

Lengthy tornado watches were posted for sections of the state, but no tornadoes materialized.

Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley said that town road crews responded to five streets where trees or tree sections had fallen onto the roadways, requiring debris removal. Those areas were Dinglebrook Lane, New Lebbon Road, Birch Hill Road, High Bridge Road, and Huntingtown Road.

The were some brief road closures until debris could be removed, but no extended road closures, he said.

Although the rain was torrential Tuesday night, there was no substantial road flooding or ponding, he said.

The storm created a few washouts where road pavement was washed away along road’s edges, he said. Also, some reguarding will be needed on some dirt roads, he added.

Of the storm, Mr Hurley said, “It was certainly not a simple thunderstorm, but nothing outrageous.

“The Newtown area certainly did not get the worst of that storm,” he noted.