Severe thunderstorms swept through Connecticut Thursday, knocking out power to more than 50,000 homes and causing areas of significant damage, particularly around the towns of Hamden and Branford. Gov. Ned Lamont announced he was deploying National Guard troops to help with storm cleanup, clearing downed trees and allowing utility crews to secure power cables.
Several counties were under a tornado watch for portions of the day.
“It’s remarkable the nature of this storm, how fast it came,” said Lamont during an evening news conference. “Talking to Curt Leng, mayor of Hamden, skies were not looking that foreboding, and bingo -- it hit, it hit hard.”
In addition to utility line workers, private cleanup crews were hard at work Thursday night.
Jacob Urbanowski from Certified Property Management traveled from Ellington to Hamden to clean up company parking lots.
“There’s a lot of trees down obviously,” he said. “We came down here and saw all the damage, and we had a tree down on this car next to us, and one across the street. The whole windshield’s smashed in and the front end is pretty dented up.”
The storm came coincidentally on the same day that Eversource executives went before a legislative committee to discuss their response to Tropical Storm Isaias at the beginning of this month.
The state’s largest electric utility was quick to note the measures it’s taking to restore customers after this storm, saying Thursday evening it had deployed a mobile command unit to Branford and had crews already in position before the weather hit.
”In Branford, the damage is so severe our crews are facing traffic jams and impassable roads,” said Eversource vice president Mike Hayhurst in an emailed statement. “We’re working alongside first responders there to help clear blocked roads and gain access to damage locations so crews can begin making necessary repairs and restore power.”
During his briefing, Lamont noted the number of power outages Thursday was a fraction of the 900,000 during Isaias -- a situation that took more than a week to rectify in some areas of the state.
But he noted:
“We’ve got to make sure, if these storms are getting more and more frequent, our response is getting better and better each time around.”
