A thunderstorm felled trees, downed wires and caused multiple calls for emergency responders across the Valley Thursday night.
In Oxford, trees fell, causing roads to be closed on Old State Road, Larkey Road South and Chestnut Tree Hill Road, said Chief Scott Pelletier.
“It hit pretty hard, but it moved pretty quick,” Pelletier said at 7:40 p.m., after it was clear the storm had moved out of the area. The storm started just after 5 p.m.
Two boaters in a rubber raft in the Lake Zoar area were reported to be in trouble, but when firefighters arrived on the scene they were on dry land.
In Seymour, a lightning bolt struck a tree on Manweiler Drive off Mountain Road and set it on fire. Trees were down and roads were closed on South Benham Road and High Street, said Fire Chief Tom Tomasheski.
One house, at 123 South Main Street, suffered attic damage when a tree fell onto the roof.
“It put a five foot hole in the side, up the attic,” Tomasheski said.
Connecticut Light and Power reported more than 10 percent of Oxford customers and less than 10 percent of Seymour customers had lost power during the storm.
In Shelton, United Illuminating said more than 3,500 customers — about 20 percent — were without power at the height of the storm.
By 8:30, 2,500 people remained without power in Shelton. Ansonia had 725 people without power, and Derby had 56.
In the brief video shot outside Valley Indy offices in Ansonia at about 5:30 p.m., see people take cover in the Ansonia train station from the storm.
In Ansonia, the storm knocked down primary electrical cables from three poles on Pershing Drive, at the intersection of Clifton Avenue, and caused the street to be shut down.
Chief Ron Burgess said the United Illuminating company arrived on the scene about 8:30 p.m. and began shutting power to the lines, so that firefighters could use extinguishers to put out a fire burning on some grass, where the wires fell.
The Pershing Drive lines meant power was out for Ansonia residents in that area.
Much of the storm damage occurred around 6 p.m. In Shelton, a power outage knocked out power to the Police Department as well. Power was out for five or 10 minutes at the station before a generator switched on and restored power to the building.
Just before 9 p.m., an officer said the headquarters was running on generator power.
In Derby, the Fire Department responded to a distress call from the Coast Guard about a boater in trouble on the Housatonic River, between Derby and Stratford. They launched at Route 8 and headed toward Stratford.
Shelton firefighters in their own launch found the boater safely in the Shelton stretch of the river and took the boater to shore for medical examination, said Derby Fire Chief William Nicoletti.
Derby was not as badly hit by the storm as Oxford, Seymour and Ansonia.
“Actually, we were lucky. We had no downed wires,” Nicoletti said of Derby’s share of the storm.
