Tropical storm Isaias sent strong winds through most of the state yesterday, knocking down trees and cutting power to more than 700,000 electric customers. Connecticut residents spent the day cleaning up and waiting for their power to return.
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Pauly Pernerewski is the maintainer of Montoe Park in Waterbury’s Buck’s Hill neighborhood. He noted out a number of downed trees as he surveyed the park on his motorized cart.
"There’s another tree right there behind that other fallen tree that’s blocking the path." Pernerewski said, "Leaves everywhere: I have to go in and mulch it up with the mower when I get the chance."
He spent the day picking up sticks and branches. He’ll call the city about the bigger downed trees, about seven of them and a crew will come in with chainsaws.
Michael Barnes came from Naugatuck to stay with his family in Waterbury. He lost power in Naugatuck around 3:30 pm yesterday. He and his family stopped by Montoe Park to cool down.
"I thought the sprinkler would be on." Barnes said, standing near the park’s Splash Pad, "we usually always hope for the sprinkler. Yeah, just letting my little man get right real quick."
The park’s Splash Pad didn’t turn on until later. Barnes headed back to his grandmother’s house, which has air conditioning.
"Yeah, praise the lord! Praise the lord for the coolness," Barnes said, "'cause I mean this weather out here is ridiculous."
Jeanne and Paul Russ lost power around the same time yesterday. They were picking up sticks on the front lawn in Woodbridge. They have a generator but kept it off because they were low on gas. And they hadn’t heard anything from the town since yesterday morning.
Paul laughed as he said, "Jeanne and I were reminiscing about sitting in our family room and watching the wind blowing in 1950…"
"No, eighties." Jeanne jumped in, "1985, maybe? Gloria, whenever [Hurricane] Gloria was. We were without power for seven days that time, and we’ve had other times when we’ve been out for three or four days."
"This was bad enough," Paul concluded, "but I’ve seen worse."
That may be. But Eversource, the state’s largest electric utility, says the impact of this storm in terms of outages is greater than that of Superstorm Sandy.
