A Second Night In The Dark For Thousands Of Stratford Residents

STRATFORD, CT — Thousands of Stratford residents spent their second night in the dark Wednesday as crews worked to restore power knocked out by Tropical Storm Isaias.

As of about midnight Thursday, 16,062 United Illuminating Co. customers in Stratford — about 68 percent — were experiencing an outage, according to the company outage map. By about 3:30 a.m., the number had dropped to 9,592 customers, or 40 percent.

“We’re trying to divert to the most needy population right now,” Public Safety Director Larry Ciccarelli said about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, adding the town is prioritizing service restoration for elderly residents.

The number of customers without power 9 p.m. Wednesday was 11,960, about 1,500 more than the number affected overnight Tuesday, because a substation was taken down Wednesday for additional repairs, according to Mayor Laura Hoydick.

“Our Public Works and Public Safety crews will continue working with UI throughout the night to facilitate power restoration,” Hoydick said in a Facebook post.

UI estimated Wednesday it could be days before power is fully restored across Connecticut following the widespread outages. The company first works to repair the main parts of its electrical system such as transmission lines and substations. UI then moves on to repair the distribution system, including poles and wires on streets, with a focus on restoring power to the largest number of customers.

In addition to the outages, a few roads remained closed as of about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, including Broadbridge Avenue, Knowlton Street and River Road, which Ciccarelli said crews hoped to clear first thing Thursday morning.

“We’re trying to dually clear the roads as well as restore power, and people are working around the clock,” he said.

High winds Tuesday from the storm downed wires and poles, and caused trees to fall on houses and damage cars. Stratford firefighters, who received more than 100 calls Tuesday, warned residents to assume downed wires were live.

Sanitation workers will stop on all streets Saturday to collect yard waste created by the storm. If necessary, they will continue Sunday. Residents should have debris on their curb by 7 a.m. Saturday.

Anyone using a portable generator should keep it at least 20 feet from their home to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Stratford Health Department.

The town also set up a charging station that is open noon to 7 p.m. at the Stratford YMCA, 3045 Main St.

For more information about specific outages, visit bit.ly/39SDtig. For power-related issues in town, call 203-380-6757. To report outages to UI, call 800-722-5584 or visit UINET.com.