UPDATE: Thousands Lose Power in Manchester Due to Strong Winds, Rain

Update, 1:45 p.m.

Connecticut Light & Power had restored power to almost all customers who lost it late Tuesday night due to unusually heavy wind and rain, but a company spokesman cautioned that strong winds forecasted for Wednesday afternoon could still cause outages in the area. 

Al Lara, a CL&P spokesman, told Patch Wednesday that CL&P power outages across the state late Tuesday into early Wednesday peaked at about 21,000 customers, but that the utility had crews working throughout the nigh to restore power. 

Manchester topped out at about 15 percent of town without power late Tuesday/early Wednesday, close to 4,000 customers, but by Wednesday morning almost all customers had been restored. 

Lara said the highest concentration of outages were in Manchester, Glastonbury and Rocky Hill, but attributed the outages not to damages to CL&P's electrical systems in the area, but simply to the path of the storm and and population concentrations in those communities. 

"Mostly it was lines and broken poles," Lara said. "I think a lot of that was those were densely populate areas that got hit." 

Lara cautioned that winds forecasted to reach upwards of 30 miles an hour Wednesday afternoon could cause more power outages in the area, but said that CL&P had its full contingent of 180 line and tree crews on duty and an additional 30 outside contractor crews on standby should additional outages occur. 

"We expect (the wind) will start picking up again, although hopefully last night's winds took down most of the more damaged limbs," Lara said. 

Original Story

More than 13 percent of electrical customers in Manchester were without power early Wednesday morning due to a late storm Tuesday that brought strong wind and rain to the area. 

As of 2 a.m. Wednesday morning approximately 3,810 Connecticut Light & Power customers in Manchester, or roughly 13 percent of CL&P's 28,649 electoral customers in town, were without power.

CL&P, the state's largest electrical supplier, is reporting that 12,680 of its 1.238 million customers, or about 1 percent of its customer base, were without power early Wednesday. The two most affected areas on CL&P's outage map early Wednesday were Manchester and Rocky Hill, which was at 15 percent or 1,485 customers without power.

The most recent series of outages in town come less than two months after , which caused widespread, prolonged power outages across the state that . 

Although Wednesday's forecast calls for sunny conditions, according to the National Weather Service, heavy winds forecasted to be as high as 33 miles per hour could still bring down trees and limbs damaged by Tuesday's storm, potentially causing more outages throughout the day. 

Check back with Patch throughout the day Wednesday for an update on the power situation in town.