UPDATE: Power Restoration Expected "Late Tonight," No Tornado Touched Down in Westport

With seven crews working in Westport, Connecticut Light & Power said Thursday that power will not likely be restored until "late tonight."

That's several hours after the 5 p.m. expected time of restoration, which was reported earlier by CL&P.

The Westport Fire Department and the Public Works Department said only one CL&P crew worked overnight in Westport to restore power to more than 4,000 residents. By Thursday morning, just under 2,000 people were still without power.

As of 12:05 p.m., 1,706 Westporters remained in the dark.

"There's no exact time but we're hoping to have a vast majority of our customers' power restored later on tonight," said CL&P spokeswoman Theresa Gilbert.

Westport Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Gottfried said Wednesday's storm was a "mini March storm," and the damage was substantially less than the nor-easter that ripped through Westport March 13-14. 

He spoke with the National Weather Service to report the damage and that it seemed indicative of "straight line winds."

Ross Dickman, a NWS meteorologist in Upton, N.Y., confirmed Thursday afternoon that the storm was not the result of a tornado. He also said no lightening strikes were reported in Westport and two homes were reportedly damaged from trees.

"We work with the state Department of Homeland Security and local town officials and they have determined that there was no rotation and we just had trees that fell," Dickman said. "We reviewed radar data and made the determination it was not a tornado."

Dickman said the weather service is still surveying whether a tornado touched down in Litchfield County. 

As for Westport, he said the damage was consistent with a "gust front associated with a thunderstorm," which means the damage was over a wide area as opposed to a single path taken by a tornado.

The Westport Fire Deparment activated its Emergency Operations Center Wednesday night and responded to about 170 calls as of Thursday morning, said Assistant Fire Chief Andrew Kingsbury.

All the engines were out Thursday morning, Gottfried said, as calls continued to come in about downed trees and power lines. The fire department had about 25 firefighters on duty Wednesday night, as opposed to a regular shift of 15, which was working on Thursday.

Lt. Brett Kirby and firefighters from the Engine 4 Saugatuck station responded to Cross Highway Thursday morning for a tree that had fallen earlier that day, possibly from water weighing it down, Kirby said.

Kirby remained until traffic control arrived and CL&P responded to assess the damage, before he and his unit responded to other areas around town.

As for the CL&P response, Gottfried said the utility told him 20 crews were coming to the area Wednesday night but only one was designated to Westport. Some crews were sent to restore power to Norwalk Hospital, which still had portions of the facility without power Thursday morning.

"It's the same story revisited," Gottfried said referring to the utility's slow response in March. 

Steve Edwards, the director of Westport's Public Works Department, said he can't fault CL&P for not having people on standby since this storm came on much faster than the March nor'easter.

"The bottom line is you've got a company that is like so many companies, stripped right to the bare bones, so they don't have an ability for emergency response," Edwards said. "Myself included, I'm down three people in my highway division, so I don't have the response capability. We are all trying to skate through. ... This time of year with vacations and everything else, everything compounds. The good news is it's warm and there is no worry about freeze-ups."

All of Edwards' employees were out responding to the storm Thursday assisting utility crews and cleaning up the town.

"As far as people's yards and cleaning up, it will be at least a week and a half to two weeks cleanup for this because of the amount of debris that is around," Edwards said. "I'll be doing it all in house; I'm not contracting anything out. I don't anticipate we will qualify for or seek any federal funding."

Edwards said cost estimates will be skewed because his employees are working during regular business hours and the town will not be contracting others to assist in the cleanup.

Compared to the March storm, Edwards said "this is almost a magnitude less."

"I see an awful lot of services to the houses that got knocked out and those will be more time consuming but as far as the major roadways, I only counted about six poles down versus 60 poles down in the March storm," Edwards said. "That's the major difference. ... I think you will see a recovery significantly quicker."