Man dies after tree falls; another falls on house as strong thunderstorms leave nearly 50,000 in CT without power

Thunderstorms hit Connecticut overnight Thursday, taking down trees and power lines across the state, with one person dead, a tree on a house and leaving nearly 50,000 people without power.

The storms that rolled through brought wind gusts of up to 70 mph and cause “considerable tree damage” as well as damage to “mobile homes, roofs, and outbuildings,” according to an alert from the National Weather Service. The service had issued a severe thunderstorm watch for much of the state overnight as well as a warning for Hartford County.

Willimantic Fire Chief Marc Scrivener said a man died after he was hit by a falling tree, The chief crews there responded to Union Avenue just after 10:30 p.m. and worked to removed the tree but the man in his 50s was deceased.

Scrivener described the storm that barreled through as a powerful front with a “mighty blast of wind.”

The damage across the city included trees and wires down, around 20 roads closed and major damage to a local golf course, he said.

In Windsor, a tree fell down onto a two-story home and caused considerable damage around 10:30 p.m., according to the Windsor Volunteer Fire Department. Firefighters helped get the family out of the home, including a 3-year-old boy.

No injuries were reported.

The storms also left a number of roads closed throughout the state, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Major roads closed because of trees that went into power lines included parts of Route 7 in New Milford, Route 176 in Newington, Route 85 in Hebron, Route 83 in Manchester, Route 309 in Simsbury, Route 4 in Burlington, Route 7 in Kent, Route 222 in Harwinton, Route 7 in Canaan, Route 10 in Granby, Route 21 in Putnam, Route 183 in Winchester, Route 183 in Torrington, Route 202 in New Hartford and Service Road 800 in Torrington.

Route 202 in New Hartford was also closed because of a traffic signal that came down.

Getting power back to tens of thousands of customers knocked out by strong storms Wednesday night will take a couple of days, Eversource officials said Thursday morning.

“Last night a line of severe storms stronger than forecast swept through the state,” said Eversource President of Connecticut Electric Operations Steve Sullivan. “They caused significant tree damage pretty much across the entire state.”

Sullivan estimates the storms created 1,200 trouble spots, where there is damage to the electrical system, 90,000 customer locations, where power is out, and 150 blocked roads.

Eversource activated its emergency response plan at about 11 p.m., Sullivan said, and line crews worked straight through the night to restore more than 40,000 customers and clear about 50 blocked roads.

Still, he said, the company has 1,000 trouble spots to repair, 100 blocked roads and 60 critical facilities without power, in addition to about 50,000 customers who remain without power.

Given that, Sullivan said, “it will be a multiday restoration event,” meaning that some customers will remain without power into the weekend.

Eversource has crews both from Connecticut and responding from surrounding states working around the clock, including 100 troubleshooters, over 300 additional line crews and another 100 on the way later Thursday, Sullivan said.

“We’ll keep at this until every last customer is restored,” he said.

The line crews, who have to wear rubber protective gear that amplifies the extreme heat Connecticut has been experiencing, have worked several days in the past week following intense thunderstorms, which Sullivan said are increasing in frequency.

“We have a great group of lineworkers here in Connecticut and the folks that are coming in from other states as well,” he said.

According to Eversource, 47,909 customers were without power as of about 7:30 a.m. on Thursday. This makes up about 3.6% of the 1,313,241 customers served by the power company.

The outages included 5,023 customers in Hartford, 2,278 in Newington, 1,795 in Simsbury, 2,527 in Avon, 1,374 in Bristol, 2,113 in Canton, 1,336 in Durham, 2,135 in East Hadaam, 1,635 in Farmington, 1,235 in West Hartford, 1,370 in Watertown and 1,029 in Wethersfield.

According to United Illuminating, which serves 344,876 customers in the state, 262 were without power as of about 7:30 a.m. on Thursday. This included 230 customers in New Haven, 15 in Hamden, 15 in Woodbridge, one in Easton and one in MIlford.

Norwich Public Utilities said crews worked in the early morning hours to get the number of customers without power down from 600 to about 220. They expected to have the rest restored by 10 a.m. Thursday.