STONINGTON - Red tape and barricades closed off Water Street, a sign for drivers and pedestrians to avoid after a tree was ripped from its roots from last night’s strong wings and caused the tree to collapse onto the condo.
Erik Pearson was seen taking pictures of the tree. He told FOX61 he is an arborist who suggested to the town the trees should be cut down so something like this can be prevented.
“These trees are constantly getting larger, taller and as these trees, especially these big ones, they have high canopies, they’re totally exposed to the wind, they have a lot of going against them in a storm,” said Pearson of Stonington.
Pearson believes the trees are at least 100 years old or older and should have been recycled years before.
Other parts of Stonington also dealt with the aftermath like Boulder Avenue and Hampton Street. The intersection was also closed off a small tree tumbled down, pulling the wires down with it.
Michelle and Richard Drake said the scariest part was the strong wind.
“Oh it was howling!” said Michelle Drake of Stonington.
Their power went out briefly in the morning but came back on shortly after.
“We out for about an hour and a half this morning got back up quickly. When I looked out the front door, I saw a tree that was down,” added Michelle Drake.
Their biggest worry was their boat being blown away.
“We left it on the mooring because I didn’t realize it was going to be so bad and when I heard the wind last night, I was a little bit nervous,” said Richard Moore of Stonington.
As of Thursday night, Stonington still had over 700 power outages, according to the Eversource outage map.