Power crews respond to Greenwich outages

GREENWICH, Conn. (WTNH/AP) -- Connecticut utility crews are now dealing with less than one thousand outages after Sunday's storms.

560 outages were in reported in Greenwich as of 8:00 a.m. Monday morning, but that number spiked to 27,805 around 10:50 a.m. after a tree fell on a transformer near the railroad tracks. The down tree also caused over 7,000 outages in Stamford.

As a result of the outages, the Greenwich's First Selectman declared a state of emergency and  opened the town's Emergency Operations Center.  
 
The Community Room of the Public Safety Complex  at 11 Bruce Place and the Ben Heim Western Greenwich Civic Center at 449 Pemberwick Road have been open as cooling centers. Elderly or disabled individuals can call TAG at 203-637-4345 for transportation to a cooling/reception center.

Crews from Connecticut and Massachusetts are in the town, working to restore power.

CL&P was able to repair  the transformer by mid-afternoon. The remaining customers are expected to get power back around 8 p.m. Monday evening.

Without electricity, MetroNorth Railroad switched to diesel trains between Stamford and New York and advised customers to expect crowds and 30-minute delays. Electric train service resumed at about 2:30 p.m.

Werner Schweiger, president of NStar Electric, part of Northeast Utilities, the parent company of CL&P, said the power outage is a reminder of why trees should not be allowed to grow near high-voltage electric lines.

"This incident emphasizes in the most vivid way possible the widespread effects a single tree can cause on a utility's transmission rights of way," he said.

NStar has been criticized for tree-clearing along its rights of way west of Boston, Schweiger.

CL&P also has been aggressively clearing trees from power lines following a freak snow storm last October that downed trees and electric lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without power for more than a week.