By Sunday evening, May 20, lights were going on at many homes for the first time since last week's macroburst and thunder storms pitched the majority of Newtown's electric consumers into darkness.No School WaiverThe Newtown Bee she was not recommending seeking any type of weather-related state waiver to reduce the legal number of days the town needed to hold classes, as the Town of New Fairfield already did and was denied.Worse Than Superstorm Sandy

According to First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, Sunday saw more than 200 restoration crews working to trim theremaining 700-plus outages down to around 250 by the time emergency operations team members and Eversource management met Monday morning at 9:30 am.

At that time crews were concentrating on blocks of homes on Ridge Drive, the Parmalee Hill and Butterfield neighborhoods, Hall Lane, Tamarack, and Lakeview Terrace areas.

A municipal liaison for the utility did warn, however, that while he expected most of the remaining outages to be restored by Tuesday, May 22, there were certain single homes and small clusters that could take longer due to the sheer devastation the storm caused to their power supply infrastructure.

"It could take hours or up to a full day for crews to restore these 'onesies' and 'twosies' depending on the level of damage," said Robert Axelrod, an Eversource strategic account executive. "There are still about 20 poles [of the 90+ destroyed in Newtown] that need to be replaced, and we could still find more."

Mr Axelrod also asked anyone who notices homes around them are powered up, but are still without power themselves, to notify the utility at 800-286-2000 so utility responders could go to work on those odd outages.

Once primary restoration is all but complete, he said, a second wave of crews will respond to fix damaged poles that were not broken, as well as making other repairs that are not top priority today.

"We could be doing those repairs for days or weeks," Mr Axelrod said.

Schools remained closed Monday, in part because buses could not complete pickups on compromised key routes, which collaterally helped keep traffic down on roads where multiple crews are actively working on large circuit restorations.

School Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue was at the emergency operations meeting Monday morning, and said she expected to have school in session on Tuesday.

"People who have power, or in other parts of town may not understand how badly damaged some of these bus routes are," she said. "We want it to be safe - that is our top priority."

Any of the hardest hit neighborhoods that still could not accommodate a full-sized school bus might have smaller shuttle buses activated to get students from their normal pick-up locations to rendezvous with a larger bus, or routing may be temporarily shifted. Those logistics were not finalized by the time the morning meeting adjourned around 11 am.

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Dr Rodrigue also told

Public Works Director Fred Hurley said his crews will go in and ensure key bus routes are clear for passage as soon as utility crews finish restoration in those areas. He also offered Town crews and heavy machinery to Spectrum Communications and Frontier telecommunication restoration crews, which are ramping up work as electrical circuits are restored.

Monday morning, Eversource restoration and tree crews were working with town Public Works personnel to energize and clear seven still closed roads. Two more, however - Taunton Ridge and Button Shop Roads - were closed because of wire and/or tree hazards.

Town officials are also responding to waterfront property owners who had trees down into the water, or onto docks, by contacting First Light - the utility company that owns Lake Zoar and Lake Lillinonah - to determine a course of action for those private property owners to begin clean up work. Officials hoped to have a response on that issue later Monday.

Before closing the meeting, Mr Rosenthal took a moment to extend thanks to all town employees through their respective managers in attendance.

"I'm grateful to all town employees, from the height of the storm to today," he said. "Leadership has been stable and thoughtful, and I think that sends a message."

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Late Sunday, Eversource released details affirming that damage from the May 15 macroburst, which also spawned several tornadoes that struck Southbury, Oxford, Beacon Falls and several other communities in Connecticut and Putnam County, New York, was worse that than that created by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

According to Eversource, Tuesday's weather took down more than 1,800 poles, while Sandy took out nearly 1,700; and 288 miles of power lines were brought down, twice the length of Connecticut. In comparison, 105 miles of line were brought down during Sandy.

Wind gusts of 110 mph during the May 15 storms were also 25 miles per hour faster than the strongest wind felt during Sandy.

 midnightSince Tuesday's tornadoes and macroburst devastated the state, crews have restored power to approximately 150,000 homes and businesses. The company is on track to have the vast majority of remaining customers without power back on line by , with many being restored before that.Monday

Eversource Vice President of Electric Operations in Connecticut Michael Hayhurst called the efforts "arduous."

Eversource crews have been "clearing more than 425 roads blocked by trees tangled with our lines, replacing more than 1,800 broken poles and installing nearly 300 miles of downed electric lines - that's more downed lines than we had to replace after Superstorm Sandy," Mr Hayhurst said. "Our crews are doing a tremendous job under extremely difficult conditions. We have veteran lineworkers who have been on the job more than 30 years and they've never seen damage like they're finding in those hard-hit communities."

The company also reminds customers to be cautious while continuing with their own storm clean up.Be careful moving or cutting tree limbs and look for any wires that may be entangled in debris. Customers should always treat any downed power lines as live, stay at least 10 feet away and report them to 911.

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