West Hartford: Prepare For Storm-Related Power Outages

WEST HARTFORD, CT — Local officials are going into storm mode and they're urging the public to do the same, with a pre-holiday rain and wind storm forecast for Thursday and Friday.

The West Hartford Office of Emergency Management Wednesday alerted residents and businesses to the potential for strong winds and heavy rain followed by a flash freeze.

The storm is expected to start Thursday, Dec. 22, and last into Friday, Dec. 23.

"This weather pattern creates the potential for a loss of power along with challenging driving conditions," wrote the town.

The forecast for the West Hartford area begins with heavy rain late Thursday afternoon, officials said.

The weather will turn considerably colder on Friday as the winds increase, wrote the town.

As the day progresses, the temperatures will continue to fall and could create icing conditions for late Friday afternoon into the evening, town officials wrote.

"Please take time to secure any items that can blow away and cause damage including outdoor furniture, trampolines and holiday decorations," wrote the town. "Inflatable decorations are particularly vulnerable and should be brought indoors or securely fastened."

For information on what to do during a power outage, please visit this link.

Town officials also say folks should sign up for West Hartford’s Community Alert Notification System.

Important emergency messages will be sent to you by text, email and/or voice message to your cell phone, home phone or business.

If you are signed up, consider sharing this information with friends and family so they are as well, said West Hartford authorities.

To sign up for emergency notifications, click on this link.

Eversource also has an alert notification program regarding power outages.

People can sign up here to receive outage alerts via text, email or phone.

With text alerts, people can quickly report an outage (text OUT to 23129) or request updates (text STAT to 23129).

Eversource will send regular updates during an outage including the cause of the outage, status updates and power restoration completion.

When a power outage occurs, people can also click on the Eversource outage area map to get information on the cause of an outage and estimated restoration times.

This can be done at this link.

For more information on the West Hartford Emergency Management Department, click on this link.