HARTFORD -- Sunday’s overnight rain and high winds left trees knocked down across Hartford County.
In Farmington, Route 4 was closed shortly after midnight Sunday when a large tree came down across the road taking down power lines with it. The downed tree forced detours around the area for the morning commute and most of the day Monday.
Claire Courter said her mom could hear the tree go down overnight from inside their house just across the street.
“I woke up at like two to go to the bathroom and I saw the lights outside and my mom said she heard a crash around 12, so it’s been down since like 12,” Courter said. Her kids had a 90 minute delay of school, but the buses were still not able to get to her home.
“I had to go and drive my kids to school today because the buses couldn’t even come down the street to get them,” Courter said.
Eversource and emergency crews had the damage cleaned up by 4 p.m.Monday, roughly 16 hours after the tree came down, allowing traffic through in both directions for the evening commute.
While the Rt. 4 cleanup went on, cleanup was also going on in smaller neighborhoods in Farmington.
“I just want to clean up all the debris that came down, all the sticks and what not,” Bob Swaine, from Farmington, said as he swept piles of sticks and leaves off his driveway.
Residents from other parts of Farmington were forced to detour around several other areas of damage. On Talcott Notch Road, road closure signs blocked off where a large tree was left laying across power lines.
In Hartford, crews spent the morning cleaning up Ward Street where a utility pole came crashing down leaving wires laying across the pavement.
It was a similar scene in West Hartford on Four Mile Road where a large tree snapped in half and landed on a utility pole, leaving the road impassable.
“The leaves were still on the trees, with a lot of rain, saturated soil there’s a lot of failures,” said Chris Lucey, owner of Canton’s Better Tree and Shrub Care while working on tree clean up in a yard in West Harford.
He added that in many cases downed trees can be avoided with regular pre-storm tree management.
“Preventive pruning, preventative labeling, just diagnostics just as far as defects in trees, roots, the whole 9 yards,” Lucey said.
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