When city firefighters arrived at the Exit 40 off ramp on the northbound side of Interstate 95 early Wednesday, they found an overturned tractor-trailer that had taken down a utility pole, resulting in a web of live wires between them and the trapped victim.
Firefighters first believed two people were in the truck, but live wires meant they would have to risk their lives to get to it, said Fire Capt. Chris Zak.
This evening at about 6:00 P.M. New Haven Avenue went completely dark. The bitter cold weather, and a great many electric heaters, holiday lights, high winds and the peak period of normal electrical use, was too much for an electrical system.
Reports arrived that the nearby substation, malfunctioned and possibly caught on fire. Other reports indicate downed power lines that caught fire, Emergency responders arrived at the scene, along with utility workers, to begin the process of restoring the electric to several thousand people in the North end of Milford.
UI Operators said the power may be down for several hours until the work was complete. There was no immediate feed back on the official nature or cause of the blackout. Our source Mike Giordano a former firefighter, indicated that under such circumstances utility workers are not even permitted access to the the substation until all fires are out and the area is deemed safe. These periods of time can vary depending on the intensity, and severity of the problem.
Mike witnessed several fire trucks working at the scene when he passed by it by way of the I95 exit ramp in the North End of Milford. He was not permitted to get close or directly question anyone while the emergency work was ongoing.
The problem will be fixed in the late of night and business will should resume on schedule Wednesday morning. Fortunately this problem happened at the end of the work day limiting the amount of downtime suffered by local area businesses on New Haven Ave. Residents left without heat, should expect things back to normal in the next few hours.
(Photo of a blackout, not the one mentioned in article)
Severe thunderstorms that swept through the region this afternoon wreaked havoc with the evening commute, with downpours and heavy winds leaving fallen trees and downed power lines in their wake.
Particularly hard hit was the Milford-New Haven area, with thousands of customers left in dark by electric outages. That area had been under a tornado warning until about 4:30 p.m.
The Merritt Parkway was reported to be shut down in both directions in Trumbull and Orange by trees that fell across the travel lanes, triggering multiple accidents. The Trumbull stretch, which was not expected to be cleared until between 6 and 7 p.m., is between exits 52 and 53. In Orange, the affected section of highway was between exits 55 and 56, but authorities say it was reopened about 5:30 p.m. However, delays were expected to continue indefinitely.
The community with the largest blackout was Milford, where United Illuminating reports that nearly 1,300 customers lost power. In Orange, there were close to 600 outages and in Woodbridge, more than 700 were without electric service.
In the greater Bridgeport area, although tree and wires were felled by the storm, only scattered power outages were reported by early evening.
STORY FROM CT POST
As an addendum to this post it is important to note that record numbers of utility poles were being dug up all over town. The work on these utility poles may have been a factor in the power outage and should be looked into.
When city firefighters arrived at the Exit 40 off ramp on the northbound side of Interstate 95 early Wednesday, they found an overturned tractor-trailer that had taken down a utility pole, resulting in a web of live wires between them and the trapped victim.
