Residual Road Closures, Power Outages After High Winds Bring Down Trees, Wires

Wind gusts of up to 58 mph brought down trees and wires in the northern part of the state, causing more than 12,000 power outages and prompting several road closures late Tuesday afternoon and overnight into Wednesday.

According to Eversource Energy, there are some lingering power outages, including 110 in Norwalk and 121 in Wilton, as of 7:47 a.m. More than 12,000 people lost electricity at the height of the wind storm, a number that has since dropped down to about 754 on Wednesday morning. The greatest number of outages were reported in Hartford.

Greenwich emergency crews were busy Tuesday night due to high winds and black ice on the roads, according to police. Butternut Hallow Road will remain closed until 8 a.m. Stanwich Road is closed between Cat Rock Road and Hill Road. Taconic Road in Greenwich is open to one lane as Eversource crews work on repairing wires hindered by a fallen tree. The tree has been cleared.

Rockville Hospital in Vernon also lost electricity and resorted to a generator, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Buckland Road was closed for hours near the intersection of Route 30 in South Windsor after a power line blew into the roadway, according to South Windsor Police Chief Matthew Reed. The road reopened around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday after Eversource Energy removed a live wire from the road.

Fallen trees were also reported on Chapel Street and Ellington Road in South Windsor, on Miller Road in West Hartford, Berlin Street in Berlin and on Aspenwood Drive in the Weatogue section of Simsbury. Hartford police said trees came down in the city's West End and North End.

Route 117 was closed between Village Drive and Church Hill Road in Ledyard while crews work to remove a tree that fell onto primary wires, according to the police department. Eversource Energy is en route to make repairs.

Service along the Metro-North Danbury Branch was delayed 10-15 minutes due to downed wires in the area of Branchville, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Trees also came down onto homes in South Windsor, Hartford and West Hartford.

South Windsor police said no one was hurt and nothing was damaged when a tree fell onto the house at 1201 Strong Road in South Windsor. Another tree struck a home on Barbour Street in Hartford, while a third toppled onto a home in the Astronaut Village neighborhood near Westfarms Mall in West Hartford.

Meanwhile, East Windsor police and fire officials were called to Cricket Road after a cable TV line blew off a house and onto a school bus. Police said only the bus driver was on board at the time. Police pulled the wire off the bus and firefighters moved it from the roadway.

A driver in Torrington narrowly escaped when a pine tree came down onto his moving pickup truck on Torringford Road, the Republican-American reports.

Over in Wethersfield, an antenna fell onto an SUV in the parking lot of the Wethersfield Housing Authority complex at 60 Lancaster Road. One vehicle sustained minor damage and no one was hurt.

Winds of up to 58 mph were recorded at Bradley International Airport, while gusts reached 51 mph in Greenwich. A spokesperson for Eversource Energy said wind is pushing tree limbs into power lines.

Gusts died down overnight, but winds were still strong in the morning. Temperatures will fall into the 20s with single-digit wind chills, according to First Alert Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan.

Winds will pick up again tomorrow, and wind advisories have been issued for Hartford, Tolland and Windham counties from 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. Wednesday.

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