Many Farmington Roads Impassable; 95% Without Power

Volunteer firefighters, police and town road crews worked through Saturday night into Sunday morning after heavy, wet snow dropped almost a foot of snow and hundreds of tree limbs throughout the town.

In addition, phone lines appear to be down throughout the area and CL&P is reporting 95 percent of the town's customers - 11,674 households - without power. Across the state, more than 726,000 CL&P customers, or 58 percent, were without electricity at the peak of the storm.

The numbers, reported by CL&P at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, are larger than the number of outages reported during Tropical Storm Irene.

Farmington officials mobilized Saturday night to open a shelter at at 7 p.m. Saturday for anyone in need of assistance.

Getting there - or anywhere will be a challenge today and not recommended as town and state employees continue the cleanup.

A Farmington police dispatcher said the department actually saw very few accidents overnight but is trying to keep up with widespread reports of trees and limbs in roadways.

"There are so many roads that have debris on them that at this point it's one of those things where you can go half-way down the road and then you're stuck," she said.

Of particular concern are Routes 10 and 177.

"Route 10 from Avon to Farmington is pretty much a parking lot and there are a few areas of 177 that have limbs across them."

The damage has also led many churches and religious organizations in town to cancel Sunday services. Call your church before heading out this morning. Farmington High School's senior class Haunted House will also be rescheduled.

A parking ban remains in effect on Farmington roads until further notice.

So when will electricity be restored? With so many outages, CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross said the company opened an emergency operations center and immediately sent more than 200 line crews out to begin work immediately once the worst of the storm was over, but that answer remains unknown.

With the colder temperatures, it is likely to be a tough week for many area residents.

The damage was so bad that it led Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to declare a state of emergency on Saturday night.

“If you are without power, you should expect to be without power for a prolonged period of time,” Malloy said.

He said that both CL&P and United Illuminating have line crews out working during the storm, but stressed that the crews primarily function is to deal with dangerous or unsafe conditions, such as downed or live wires that could cause fires or injuries.

Malloy said restoration work would not occur until the potentially dangerous conditions caused by the storm had passed.

“We are not in restoration right now. I want to be very clear,” Malloy said. “I don’t want anyone to be operating with beliefs that we’re in restoration. We’re not. We won’t be until it’s safer.”

Malloy will hold a press conference today at 8:30 a.m. to discuss damage. To read more on the governor’s declaration, .

For those who would like to monitor their outages, CL&P is providing a free text line for people to use in order to monitor the restoration efforts in their neighborhood. You can get updates on outages in your town by texting “Outage” and your zip code to 24612.

A town-by-town breakdown provided by CL&P can also be used to monitor outages and can be accessed by clicking on the link.