Ice Storm Hits Town, Causing Scattered Power Outages 

By Andrew Gorosko

A storm that started with snow on Tuesday night, became an ice storm as falling rain landed on subfreezing surfaces, resulting in thick accumulations of ice.

At the height of local power outages at about 4:30 pm Wednesday, there were 1,938 Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) customers in Newtown without electricity due to storm-related damage, according to CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross. There are about 11,000 CL&P customers in town.

At 9 am on Thursday, about 900 electric customers in town remained without power, he said.

CL&P was using Fairfield Hills as a regional staging area for its work crews, which expected to have all power restored in town by the end of Thursday, Mr Gross said.

“Please have a little more patience…We’re working as quickly and as safely as we can,” he said.

 The municipalities hardest hit by power outages in this area were Newtown, Danbury, and Ridgefield, Mr Gross said.

Western Connecticut experienced the most prolonged icing problems of any part of the state during the course of the storm, he said.

Power outages are created when the weight of accumulated ice causes tree branches to sag and eventually break and fall onto power lines, bringing down those lines and disrupting the power supply.

Wind gusts, which were expected occur during the day on Thursday, could create more problems, Mr Gross said.

The power outages in Newtown were scattered ones, occurring in the particular areas where falling tree limbs disrupted the power supply, Mr Gross said.  “These types of storms keep us very busy,” he said.

Mr Gross urged that if people see downed power lines, they should not go near those lines.

Due to weather conditions, local schools were closed on Wednesday and started classes 90 minutes later than normal on Thursday.

Town Emergency Management Director Bill Halstead said the town used its Code Red automated telephone calling system to notify residents at about 8 pm Wednesday that Newtown Middle School was available for use as an emergency shelter for people who had lost electricity and needed a place to stay. However, no one used the shelter, he said.

 Meteorologist Gary Lessor, the assistant director of the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, said the winter weather that hit the area Tuesday night and Wednesday amounted to “a significant ice storm.”

Mr Lessor noted that the storm was the first winter storm of the season whose content was primarily ice.

The storm started with snowfall about 6 pm Tuesday, and by 9 pm it became freezing rain, he said.

In the greater Danbury area, about nine-tenths of an inch of precipitation fell overall, of which three-quarters of an inch of that precipitation fell on Wednesday, he said.

Many surfaces accumulated at least three-quarters of an inch of ice on them, he said.

Western Connecticut received more ice accumulations than the central or eastern parts of the state because it remained colder in this area, he said.

Mr Lessor said the state typically receives an ice storm on this scale about once every three to four years.

Pine trees are very susceptible to the effects of ice storms, he noted, explaining that their relatively delicate structure is more readily damaged by ice accumulations than other, sturdier types of trees.

 As bad as the ice storm was, it was not nearly as serious as the ice storm that created major problems in New Hampshire in December, Mr Lessor noted.

Joe Tani, who is operations manager for the town highway department, said that about ten local roads needed to be closed for various periods of time after electric lines fell onto them, posing safety hazards.

Among major roads that needed to be closed were two sections of Route 302 and a section of Route 34. While those road sections were closed, traffic was detoured around the problem areas until repairs could be made.

Other roads that were closed for a time included Floral Heights, Head O’ Meadow Road, Birch Hill Road, Scudder Road, and Poverty Hollow Road, he said.

“An awful lot of limbs came down…We had some big trees come down,” Mr Tani said.

During a two-hour period on Wednesday afternoon, the town highway department received about 40 calls for service, he said.

Mr Tani noted that after a road crew member had entered the dead-end Saddle Ridge Road to plow it on Wednesday, a tree fell across the road, preventing the plow driver from reentering Hattertown Road until town workers could remove the fallen tree.

Police said that as of Thursday morning, only a few local roads remained closed to traffic due to fallen power lines.

Aunt Park Lane, a side street extending from Hattertown Road, was among the hardest hit places by the ice storm, police said.

The area that took the brunt of the storm was the southwest section of town, police said. That is the area lying west of South Main Street and south of Route 302.

The town’s five volunteer fire companies were very busy during the ice storm. The fire companies responded to a total of 56 calls for service from 10 am on Wednesday to 7:25 am on Thursday.

A large majority of the calls were related to the ice storm. Most of the ice storm calls involved fallen trees or fallen branches that had landed on utility lines, including electric lines, damaging those lines.

When the fallen trees and their limbs brought down electric lines, firefighters would barricade the affected areas to prevent people from coming into contact with live wires.