Update: As of 5:40 p.m., 1,331 United Illuminating customers were without power.
Original post from 5:05 p.m. follows:
Winds in Connecticut have been gusting between 30 and 50 mph and those numbers will increase into the night, state officials warned local municipalities during a 4 p.m. conference call Monday.
The next six hours will see increasing winds and a record-breaking high tide is expected in Bridgeport off Long Island later tonight. The tide in Bridgeport could reach 11.9 feet, which would be the highest tide on record since a hurricane in 1938.
The unusual high tide is why emergency officials in Ansonia are monitoring the Naugatuck River. The same goes for Derby and Shelton, where officials are keeping an eye on the Housatonic below the Derby-Shelton bridge.
Flooding has not been an issue so far in the lower Naugatuck Valley — but trees and tree branches have been falling at a steady rate since about 1 p.m.
Oxford, Seymour and Shelton have been hit the hardest by falling trees and branches.
As of 5 p.m., 1,111 CL&P customers — or 21 percent of all CL&P customers in Oxford — were without power.
In Seymour, 625 CL&P customers — or 8 percent — were without power.
In Shelton, 817 United Illuminating customers were without power as of 5 p.m. That is almost 5 percent of the UI customers in Shelton.
Meanwhile, in Ansonia just one United Illuminating customer was without power. In Derby, two.
State government is still urging caution among residents as Hurricane Sandy enters the area. The potential for power failures will increase as the storm drones on.
UI and CL&P will dispatch crews to clear roads — especially if there’s an underlying 911 call where emergency vehicles must get by.
However, the utility companies will not put workers into bucket trucks to fix power lines until the wind gusts diminish.
During the 4 p.m. conference call between the state and local officials, town leaders in Fairfield and Roxbury complained about the UI and CL&P response, saying there were communication issues in those two towns.
No Valley leaders complained about the response during the 4 p.m. conference call.
