Heavy winds cause power outages, downed trees and road closures
Heavy winds Friday resulted in reports of downed trees and wires across southeastern Connecticut, causing road closures and outages well into the evening.
As of 7:30 p.m., crews still were out clearing roads in East Lyme, Old Lyme and Groton, among other towns.
East Lyme was particularly hit hard by the gusts that reached up to 59 miles per hour in some parts of the region. Town police reported closures on North Bride Brook Road by Applewood Commons, South Cobblers Court, Church Lane, Grassy Hill Road and Beaver Brook Road. The area surrounding 129 Chesterfield Road also was closed, police said.
While the City of Groton was largely spared by the storm, its police said, Groton Town still was clearing up downed trees and powerlines on Flanders Road and areas near Noank and was experiencing outages on Gold Star Highway.
Gary Lessor, meteorologist at the Western Connecticut State University, said about 4 p.m. that Groton-New London Airport was reporting 59 mile-per-hour wind gusts. A normal wind gust typically hovers around 20 to 25 mph, he said. Wind gusts were expected to last until about 8 p.m., he said, and then will "dramatically" drop off "quickly."
At 7:30 p.m., Lessor said winds had considerably slowed, and explained that the windstorm was due to low barometric pressures typically associated with snowstorms.
"It was a very uneventful morning with just some rain but this afternoon, as the cold front approached, it quickly drew the warm air northward and as the cold air slammed in throughout the afternoon, that triggered all the gusty winds along with the rapidly dropping barometric pressure," he said.
Montville and Norwich also saw their own share of downed powerlines and trees, including road closures along Route 32.
Route 163 in Montville in the area of Lynch Hill Road was closed after a report of trees on wires, and Ridge Hill Road at the intersection with Turner Road was closed due to a utility pole that fell over.
Power outages also were reported. Of Eversource's 6,792 customers in Ledyard, more than 2,000 were without power as of 3:30 p.m. More than 800 residents in North Stonington and about 750 in Old Lyme were without power. Outages also were reported in parts of East Lyme, Groton, New London and Montville. As of 7:30 p.m., outages affecting hundreds still were being reported throughout the region, with the largest outages in North Stonington, Waterford and northern areas of East Lyme.
Norwich Public Utilities posted on its Facebook page just before 3 p.m. saying that it was starting to get reports of trees and wires down in a several locations throughout town, and reminded residents to report any downed wires to NPU at (860) 887-2555.
Due to intense waves in Long Island Sound, the Cross Sound Ferry cancelled all of its remaining trips for the day Friday.
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