Thunderstorms leave nearly 50,000 people in CT without power

Thunderstorms hit Connecticut Thursday night, downing trees and power lines across the state and leaving nearly 50,000 people without power.

The storms that passed by brought wind gusts of up to 70 mph and caused “significant damage to trees” and damage to “mobile homes, roofs and outbuildings,” according to a National Weather Service warning. The agency had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for much of the state overnight, as well as a warning for Hartford County.

In Windsor, a tree fell on a two-story home and caused significant damage around 10:30 p.m., according to the Windsor Volunteer Fire Department. Firefighters helped evacuate the family, including a 3-year-old boy.

No injuries have been reported.

The storms also closed a number of roads across the state, according to the Department of Transportation.

Major roads closed due to trees encroaching on power lines included portions of Route 7 in New Milford, Route 176 in Newington, Route 85 in Hebron, Route 83 in Manchester, Route 309 in Simsbury, Route 4 in Burlington, Route 7 in Kent, Route 222 in Harwinton, Route 7 in Canaan, Route 10 in Granby, Route 21 in Putnam, Route 183 in Winchester, Route 183 in Torrington, Route 202 in New Hartford and Service Road 800 in Torrington.

Route 202 in New Hartford was also closed due to an outage traffic signal.

According to Eversource, 47,909 customers were without power around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. This represents approximately 3.6% of the 1,313,241 customers the energy company serves.

The outages affected 5,023 customers in Hartford, 2,278 in Newington, 1,795 in Simsbury, 2,527 in Avon, 1,374 in Bristol, 2,113 in Canton, 1,336 in Durham, 2,135 in East Hadaam, 1,635 in Farmington, 1,235 in West Hartford, 1,370 in Watertown and 1,029 in Wethersfield.

According to United Illuminating, which serves 344,876 customers in the state, 262 were without power as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday. This included 230 customers in New Haven, 15 in Hamden, 15 in Woodbridge, one in Easton and one in Milford.

Norwich Public Utilities said crews worked in the early morning hours to reduce the number of customers without power from 600 to about 220. They expected the remainder to be restored by 10 a.m. Thursday.