State officials are closely monitoring the activity of Hurricane Joaquin, which is currently near the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean, and are advising Connecticut residents to do the same.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy issued a news release Wednesday urging residents to closely follow weather reports and prepare for the possibility of Joaquin's arrival in the region over the next five days.

State and local police reported that heavy downpours caused minor flooding and power outages in the area Wednesday morning.

In New London, a portion of Broad Street near Ledyard Street, Bank Street at the intersection of Shaw Street, and Pequot Avenue at Greens Harbor Beach experienced flooding, according to police.

At the same time state police urged motorists to use caution due to reports of rain water ponding throughout Interstate 395 and Interstate 95.

The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich has postponed its Cancer Survivors Day Celebration scheduled for Saturday because bad weather has been predicted by the National Weather Service. A rain date has not yet been set.

Shawn Mawhiney, Backus Hospital spokesman, said safety was the reason the event was postponed.

With hundreds of cancer survivors and their families expected to attend under a tent on the hospital grounds, and scattered heavy rain and wind predicted for the next several days, the decision was made on Wednesday.

In Norwich, downed trees and branches in several areas of the city caused power outages affecting nearly 2,000 Norwich Public Utilities customers, NPU spokesman Chris Riley said. All power was restored by 11 a.m., Riley said.

One outage briefly knocked out power to Norwich Regional Technical High School, Norwich Free Academy and Kelly Middle School at the start of the school day.

Norwich Public Schools Superintendent Abby Dolliver said the brief outage did not affect school operations and allowed an unscheduled test of the school's new emergency generator, designed to turn on automatically when power is lost.

"It worked," Dolliver said.

The Norwich Public Works Department recorded 2.24 inches of rain by the time the major rain ended at mid morning.

Preston Town Hall and public library, both at 389 Route 2, were closed throughout the day Wednesday after a branch knocked down a power line at the entrance to the town hall driveway at Route 2, First Selectman Robert Congdon said.

Power was restored by late afternoon, but the outage forced state Rep. Michael France, R-Ledyard, to cancel a planned town hall meeting Wednesday evening at the Preston Public Library. No new date has been announced.

The morning's heavy rain caused some power outages in Ledyard, Lyme and North Stonington. Lyme had the most, with 276 customers in the dark, according to Eversource, formerly CL&P.

The National Weather Service said the rain will be heavy at times and is not expected to leave the region until the evening.