Clean Up Continues as Thousands Remain in the Dark

Almost 3,000 residences remained without power Sunday as crews from the Public Works Department and United Illuminating worked to clear the roads and the power lines from the more than 100 trees that fell during Saturday's snowstorm.

As of 11 p.m. Sunday, 2,628 homes were in the dark, roughly the same number out Sunday morning.

"We are in constant contact with UI, but not the best informtion flow," said Chief Administrative Officer Curt Balzano Leng. "They're working hard, but communication has been challenging."

United Illuminating services 17 communities from Fairfield to North Branford. Hamden's outages have been the highest of all of those municipalities except for a short time when Fairfield's totaled about 3,100.

Mayor Scott Jackson Sunday declared a state of emergency and opened an emergency shelter at the Ridge Road Fire Station for anyone looking to get out of the cold or charge electrical devices such as cell phones and laptops. 

Jackson declared the state of emergency "in order to open every tool in the town's arsenal to address the effects of this storm," Leng said. "This state of emergency is in effect until further notice." 

Planet Fitness on Marne Street also is allowing anyone without power to use its shower facilities free of charge.

Jackson and Public Works Director Craig Cesare are working through the night on getting roads cleared, Leng said. About 25 roads were impassable because of fallen trees, he said, including Shepard Avenue, which at different points throughout Saturday afternoon and Sunday had portions closed while crews worked to clear the road.

That area also was hit hard by outages because of the failure of a UI substation there, Leng said.

The cleanup effort is on the same scale as that of Irene, which left many in the dark for days.

"Similar to Storm Irene, there are still many trees down and entangled with wires that need UI attention for safety reasons before Hamden personnel can touch them," Leng said.

An additional UI crew joined those already in town Sunday afternoon to help expidite the effort, he said, and both town and UI crews will continue to work through the night.

"[Saturday] night the town requested and was granted a UI representative to be present at the town's central dispatch for increased information flow to UI, direct communication with our residents and to identify power outage locations," Leng said. "The UI rep traveled the town with the Public Works Director to survey problem areas [Sunday] morning and is now working to get additional resources and attention to these areas of Hamden."