Wet, heavy snow fell rapidly on New Canaan starting Wednesday afternoon, knockng down trees and power lines, causing outages and prompting emergency responders to close roads.
South Avenue between Mead and Maple Streets is closed for at least the morning of Thursday, March 8, 2018 in the wake of a storm that’s left more than one-third of New Canaan without power. Credit: Carl Franco
New Canaan Public Schools will be closed again on Thursday, with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi citing very dangerous road conditions as a reason.
New Canaan Library will open at 12 p.m. Metro-North Railroad service is suspended on the New Canaan branch.
Emergency Management Director Mike Handler said late Wednesday that some 75 roads in town were blocked with trees and what should be assumed to be “live and dangerous” power lines.
According to Eversource, outages in New Canaan jumped up to 35 percent or 2,965 homes as of 7:15 a.m. Thursday. It stood at about 19 percent at 5 p.m. The utility company must shut down power in an area prior to making repairs and restoring it.
A downed wire at Sunset Hill Road and Weed Street at 10 p.m. on March 8, 2018 caused this fire. Credit: John Murphy
Firefighters responded to reports of downed wires on Rocky Nook Road, Wellesley Drive, Sunset Hill Road, Greenley Road, West Road, Fairty Drive, White Oak Shade Road, Thurton Drive and Valley Road, among others. A wire down on Sunset Hill Road at Weed Street around 10 p.m. produced a large fire.
The National Weather Service has New Canaan and the region under a Winter Storm Warning through 4 a.m. Thursday. The weather service is calling for 42-degree temperatures during the day, with a 20 percent chance of rain and snow on Thursday night.
