Residents should be prepared to be without electricity for five days, according to a message sent out from the town Monday evening.
This is the message the Seymour Office of Emergency Management sent:
We are currently experiencing downed power lines and tree limbs.
The safety of all is our highest priority.
We remind residents that the Seymour Middle School is open for a shelter, charging station or for showers.
Residents without water may obtain it at the Great Hill Hose company by the water faucet located by the rear garage door of the building.
Please continue to plan on the power outage to last at least five days.
With that said, we have a safety reminder from the Fire Department for those who are running generators, to place their units outdoors and away from the residence for exhaust purposes.
Again, the Trick or Trunk event for tonight at the Seymour Middle School is canceled and will be rescheduled at a later date when power is restored.
We also ask everyone to use their vigilance for safety and we will provide further updates when further information is available to all.
Thank you.
First Selectman Paul Roy said Monday morning that Connecticut Light & Power crews are in town.
“From what I understand there are a couple of crews around getting limbs off wires,” Roy said, saying the next step would be to work at power restoration.
“It’s a tough situation, but everybody is working together to get us through it as quickly as possible, as easily as possible,” Roy said.
What Happened At 10 a.m. Sunday?
It was one of the more annoying aspects of this weekend’s freakish Nor’easter.
At 7 a.m. Sunday, 55 percent of Seymour customers were without power.
By 11 a.m. — 100 percent, even though the number of emergency calls for trees and wires down had greatly decreased (at least by what the Valley Indy heard on the police scanner).
What happened?
Seymour Fire Marshal Paul Wetowitz told the Valley Indy Monday that a transmission line feeding electricity to an electrical substation in Beacon Falls was damaged.
The damage happened about 10 a.m. Sunday — knocking out power in Seymour for just about everyone, especially those in the center of town.
Transmission lines, according to CL&P, are those high-tension lines that feed electrical substations. Fixing transmission lines requires specialized, five-person crews, CL&P president Jeff Butler said Monday morning.
CL&P told town officials today they will work on the Beacon Falls substation that caused so much of Seymour’s outage, said Tom Eighmie,
the town’s emergency manager.
“They will start work on it today but there is no guarantee,” Eighmie said. “If the Beacon Falls substation gets fixed, there’s a chance half of Seymour will come back on line.”
Halloween Common Sense
With regard to Halloween night, Trick or Trunk has been canceled and general door-to-door trick or treating is discouraged, Eighmie said.
The Seymour Office of Emergency Management sent out a Tweet at about noon saying:
“Seymour Trick n Trunk has been cancelled. The town asks everyone not to trick or treat due to hazardous conditions.”
Eighmie said trick or treating Monday night is unsafe, with no lights, and there is a danger tree limbs could fall.