National Weather Service to survey storm damage as Gov. declares state of emergency

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    BRANFORD, CT (WFSB) — Clean-up efforts continue on Friday after strong storms ripped through parts of the state, leaving behind a path of destruction.

The National Weather Service said Friday morning that it will be sending a team to survey damage in New Haven County, particularly in Guilford, North Branford, Branford, East Haven, North Haven, Bethany, Hamden and Waterbury.

Gov. Ned Lamont also declared a state of emergency to help expedite the storm response.

On Friday morning, Eversource officials said about 400 crews have been working since Thursday afternoon to restore power to the thousands who were left in the dark.

It said later in the morning that they estimated restoration for all towns, other than Branford, to be substantially complete by midnight.

“We know the timing couldn’t have been worse for our customers affected by these storms, and we’ll continue working the extreme sense of urgency that they deserve until all of our customers have power again,” said Eversource’s Craig Hallstrom, president of Electrical Operations.

As of about 1 p.m. Friday, about 13,800 Eversource customers were still without power. That’s about 1% of Eversource’s customer base.

The majority of those outages were in Branford, with about 83% of the town still in the dark.

United Illuminating was reporting 12,789 as of Friday at 1 p.m., with the majority being in Hamden and North Haven.

Hallstrom said the shoreline was hit particularly hard with Thursday’s storms.

He said crews are seeing significant tree damage and a lot of road closures.

“In terms of damage as we’ve seen in the last several weeks, it’s trees. There’s been significant tree damage impacted by the storm, and a lot of roads closed,” Hallstrom said.

The storms also snapped trees across I-95 on Thursday, even shutting down all southbound lanes at one point.

Local roads were hit even more-so, like Route 146 and East Main Street.

Gov. Ned Lamont traveled to North Haven and Branford Friday morning to assess the storm damage. He was joined by the Major General of the Connecticut National Guard and its search and rescue teams.

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