A wind storm with gusts of 43 miles per hour tore through town overnight on Feb. 25, leaving a mess of branches in the roads and nine roads blocked and nearly 900 Ridgefield power customers still out by 3 p.m.
At 2:49 p.m., 8 percent of the utility Eversource’s electricity customers in Ridgefield, 873 houses and businesses, remained out of power. The company was reminding drivers to not try and move downed power lines, and treat all downed lines as if they are live.
The customers would mostly be restored by 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 26, spokesman Mitch Gross said.
He said the downed lines and outages were statewide, with 40,000 customers out as of 2:49 p.m. Severe weather caused problems for the utility across the state.
“There were wind gusts as much as 70 miles per hour,” Gross said. “The saturated ground and high winds took trees down.”
The public schools cancelled for the day because of the storm damage, which made bus travel difficult.
“It gets complicated for school buses when lines are down,” said Fire Department Assistant Chief Jerry Myers.
“We had about six responses for storm-related stuff, from power lines down to a possible lightning strike,” Myers said.
He also reported six false fire alarms because of storm activity and power surges.
By 10:30 a.m., several roads were still blocked by trees, Myers said. He could understand why school was cancelled for the day. The Police Department was warning drivers to not attempt to pass areas taped off.
There were many cases overnight of officers moving branches out of the road on their own, said Capt. Jeffrey Kreitz, spokesman for the department.
The roads that remained closed at 4 p.m. were Saunders Lane; Barrack Hill near Continental Drive; Peaceable Street near Westmoreland; Wilton Road East near 209; Nod Road between Branchville and Whipstick; North Street, near Barlow Mountain; Washington near Rochambeau,Oscaleta Road near West Mountain Road, on east side; Lounsbury Road near Blackman Road; Branchville between East Ridge and Main; Jefferson Drive near number 42; and Nutmeg Ridge.
Several other roads were passable with one-way travel.
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