Power Outages in Residences, Schools; Classes Canceled Halloween

Power outages continue to be an issue in Avon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy on Halloween.

About 1,296 Avon Connecticut Light & Power customers, or 14 percent, had no electricity as of 2 a.m. on Wednesday. The question on many residents' minds is when their power will be restored.

"Currently, CL&P is completing its damage assessments and will be deploying crews to begin restoration. Some restoration will involve areas outside of Avon," town officials said in a message to the community posted on the town website. "Most of the outages are along several major circuits and restoration will take time, but when the work on each circuit is complete, we will see significant reduction in outage numbers. Please report your outage, but be patient."

Avon Public Schools are closed for the third day this week, however sports teams will be allowed to practice and compete to meet the CIAC Nov. 1 deadline for sports schedules to conclude. 

All of the schools but Roaring Brook School were still without power early Tuesday evening. Avon High School is running on a generator as the town's emergency shelter.

Select traffic lights were out on West Avon Road and the Route 44/Climax Road intersection. In the event you come upon a traffic light outage in Avon, treat it as a stop sign.

Trees and branches were down in select parts of town Tuesday, including one that fell through an Edgewood bedroom and another that fell on the Farmington Valley Arts Center. Another blocked Lovely Street, limiting it to one lane of traffic flow, and there were also trees down near RR Donnelley and the Avon Canine Shelter.

Avon Mountain was closed at Deercliff Road from both directions due to power and utility lines that fell across that part of Route 44. As of 5 p.m., the mountain was still closed to traffic there.

Many businesses regained power Tuesday morning and most were open late afternoon, but some stayed closed as a result of the storm.

People were taking advantage of the open businesses to pass the time while their power was out, eat and recharge. The Avon Starbucks, which has Internet, was packed with people on electronics and socializing with occasional banter about experiencing power outages.

How did you fare in the storm? Did you take pictures or video? Upload them to our gallery.

For regular updates, click on our Hurricane Sandy Avon Info Center, like Avon Patch on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AvonPatch) and follow us on Twitter (@AvonPatch). Report any outages to CL&P at 1-800-286-2000.