NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The cleanup along the shoreline continues.
United Illuminating has restored power to about 38,000 customers. Although about 86,000 remain without power.
Over half of the town of Orange remain powerless. The strong winds from Tropical Storm Isaias brought down three trees in Bob Bucci's front yard off of Racebrook Road.
"It almost felt like it was a tornado," said Bucci.
The power to his house and the intersection in front of his home have been out for over 24 hours. Even with utility crews hard at work in front of his home, it still could be some time before his power comes back
"Possibly 4 o’clock tomorrow evening. That was one report. Another one we heard was maybe two weeks from now," said Bucci.
The same winds that toppled trees in Bucci's front yard took down 203 in the city of New Haven.
Over half of those blocked roadways. At one point 12,000 people were without power. Over double the outages from Hurricane Sandy.
City officials say it could take a week to restore power to everyone.
"This was a mega tropical storm," said Emergency Operations Director Rick Fontana. "There was major, major damage. Major damage to homes. Major damage to electrical infrastructure."
Even damage to the Police Department. Part of the server room went down as well as their ability to receive calls to 911 for a brief time.
"That became a significant issue for us because we could not understand if people were trying to call 911 and we were getting the information," said Fontana.
The City of New Haven and United Illuminating had crews out all evening to clear high impact areas to allow for easier travel in the city.
The city says libraries are open to charge electronics.
They will also be providing ice to keep medications cold for people in need through the emergency operations center.
"The kind of impact we’ve seen around the city, the kind of power lines that are down and the trees that are down, this is going to take quite a long time for us to address and it’s very very important that the public understands this," said Mayor Justin Elicker.
Beginning Monday, residents can leave any debris from trees they cleaned up from the storm with their trash to be picked up by the parks and public works department to help with cleanup.
Tony Marone, President and CEO of United Illuminating, issued the following statement:
Tropical Storm Isaias caused significant damage across our electric system and impacted all 17 towns and cities we serve, with more than 1,700 outage-causing events and more than 1,000 downed wires.
At its peak we had 123,000 customers without power. We currently have fewer than 90,000 customers without power, so progress is being made. Be assured that UI crews, contractors and partners are working diligently day and night to restore service as safely and quickly as possible. This work will take time and continue until every customer is restored. We ask for your patience during this process.
The company’s initial focus today was on clearing blocked roads, assessing damage, and working with local municipalities to make roads safe and restore service to identified critical facilities. Under a well-communicated process, the company provides each municipality with a liaison to ensure a direct channel for communications, so all critical needs are met.
As this phase of work begins to wrap up, crews are now turning their attention to addressing outages affecting large numbers of customers. All of our teams are working under special precautions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These include a one-employee-per-vehicle policy, use of personal protective equipment and enhanced hygiene measures.
Finally, UI’s planning and preparation for Tropical Storm Isaias began last week, long before it posed a clear threat to our area. At that time, the company reached out to its mutual assistance group (NAMAG) to request additional restoration resources, worked to secure additional contractors, and began outreach to municipal partners. All this planning is consistent with the Emergency Response Plan, on file with the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, for a storm of this magnitude.
The storm we prepared for is the storm we got.
