More have power restored, but thousands wait

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Thousands more utility customers had their power restored Friday, but many others will have to get through the weekend in the dark.

At 5:00 a.m. today Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating combined had more than 241,000 customers without power. By three in the afternoon that down to under 228,000.

"Yesterday we announced that we would be substantially complete by Monday or Tuesday and at this point I remain confident that we're going to be able to achieve that goal," Bill Quinlan of CL&P said.

Even with that estimate, it's clear that about 10 to 20 thousand customers will likely not be restored until Wednesday or Thursday, some even later.

"We reported yesterday that we had 1,080 external line workers available to us. Today we have approximately 1,500 external line workers in the field and working and tomorrow that number is going to increase further to roughly 2,100," Quinlan said.

All of those resources are being funneled into Southwestern Connecticut and Southeastern Connecticut from Branford to the Rhode Island border.

As evidence of the outside help, News 8 received photos of out-of-state crews, including one group from Hydro Quebec..

With Election Day coming up, both companies were working to make sure polling places had power.

Jim Torgerson of United Illuminating said all polling places in their service area will be back by Monday.

"We said yesterday we expect to have 95 percent of our customers with power by Monday at midnight and we still believe that will be the case. Hopefully, we can do a little bit better than that," Torgerson said.

The much smaller United Illuminating Company says they have over 500 linemen working extra long shifts and 375 tree workers helping to restore power in New Haven, Bridgeport and the 15 smaller towns they serve.

Quinlan said this morning that 36 polling stations were still without power.

Gov. Malloy also made a trip to New Haven and West Haven Friday to see the damage along the shoreline.

"There was a lot of movement of sand and debris. I'm amazed at how well their doing at cleaning up," Gov. Malloy said. "We need to have discussions about hardening our infrastructure and what that looks like and this will be a long term project."

Other improvements Friday; Metro-North service is running once again from New Haven's Union Station. The MTA said it was running on or close to its regular schedule. However, branch service is still suspended.

It's still free to ride Metro-North or New York's subway and buses until midnight.

Most state parks will be open this weekend. Here's what will remain closed

• Haystack Mountain State Park, Norfolk: Closed
• Mount Tom State Park, Litchfield: Closed
• Talcott Mountain State Park / Heublein Tower, Simsbury; Closed
• Collis P. Huntington State Park, Redding
• Sherwood Island State Park, Westport
• Kettletown State Park, Southbury
• Squantz Pond State Park, New Fairfield
• Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth
• Gillette Castle State Park, East Haddam (Visitor Center and Castle, Closed; Park Grounds, Open)

Representatives of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are in Connecticut making assessments about possible disaster declarations in the four non-shoreline counties.

Anyone who will be filing a disaster claim first needs to register with FEMA by calling 800-621-3362 or registering online at DisasterAssistance.gov . There is also a FEMA Disaster Center at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport if your phone doesn't work and you want to make a claim in person. Be sure to bring your insurance and other paperwork.