Governor Updates Residents On Hurricane Henri Preparation

CONNECTICUT — With Hurricane Henri expected to make landfall early Sunday morning along Connecticut’s shoreline, Gov. Ned Lamont conducted a briefing Saturday afternoon from the State Emergency Operations Center at the State Armory in Hartford.

Lamont was joined by Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and representatives from Eversource Energy, FEMA, the Connecticut National Guard and Connecticut State Police. They provided an overview of preparation plans for Henri, which has been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane.

"We are expecting 8-plus inches of rainfall on top of all the rain we've had this week," Lamont said. "Our grounds are saturated, and we will be at the highest tide. With all that plus high winds, we expect coastal flooding."

The National Hurricane Center predicts the storm will come ashore over Long Island, then hit Connecticut near New Haven Sunday afternoon or evening.

Eversource and United Illuminating said there could be "hundreds of thousands of outages," Lamont said. Bysiewicz said Eversource has 1,471 restoration crews on standby.

Over 200 National Guard members have been activated, Lamont said.

A statement from Eversource issued Saturday afternoon indicated of roughly 1.25 million electric customers of that utility company in Connecticut, between 50 and 69 percent could lose power, and restoration efforts could last between eight and 21 days.

"Thousands of trees could come down during this hurricane, further complicating power restoration efforts," according to the Eversource statement.

Eversource President of Regional Electric Operations Craig Hallstrom wrote, "As Henri moves closer, we’ve been re-positioning crews, equipment and other resources accordingly so that we’re ready for the significant, widespread damage we can expect to see from this storm. While we have a massive contingent of line and tree crews from across the country and Canada here and more on the way, customers should be prepared for lengthy outages. That said, we are singularly focused on our responsibility to restore power as quickly as safely possible for our customers."

Despite the likelihood that many residents will likely be without power, Lamont said he believes the utility companies are ready for the challenge.

"I don't think Connecticut has ever been better prepared for a storm like Henri," he said.

All state parks and state forest areas will be closed all day Sunday due to the impending storm. They are expected to re-open Monday, pending any potential storm impact, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said in a written statement.

Campgrounds at 13 state parks and forests were closed at 4 p.m. Saturday.

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