98 Percent of Fairfield without Power

Update, Oct. 30 9:32 a.m.

A press conference will be held at Fairfield Police headquarters at 11:00 am to address the current condition of the town, including power outages, dangerous road conditions and alerts, and recovery.

Update, Oct. 30 5:27 a.m.

According to United Illuminating, 98 percent of Fairfield is without power—that's 21,371 customers.

Town officials say Fairfield Roger Ludlowe High School, the designated shelter for residents, was housing 189 people and over 40 pets late Monday night. The Fairfield Emergency Call Center at 203-256-4899 can provide recorded updates until Tuesday morning when it will be staffed at 9 a.m., according to a press release from Fire Department Assistant Chief Christopher Tracy, the department's public information officer.

In the release, Tracy advised residents to stay at home so that utility crews and emergency responders could do their work.

"All downed wires should be considered live and flood-waters may be contaminated; both should be avoided until rendered safe," Tracy said.

According to Tracy, mandatory evacuation areas include all streets south of the Old Post Road, Old Field Road, and Westway Road. Refer to Town Hall and Fairfield Police Department Websites and Facebook sites for updated maps and information.

Original Story, Oct. 29

Nearly 120,000 United Illuminating costumers in the New Haven area are without power Monday evening, in part because the utility company was forced to shut down three substations that were submerged by the rising tides sustained in Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge.

As of 9:30 p.m. every community in UI’s coverage area is dealing with outages, with some as low as 15 percent of the town being in the dark and others as high as 9- percent.

In Fairfield, 91.4 percent of the town — 20,003 customers — are without power, according to UI outage reports.

The storm surge from Hurricane Sandy, combined with high tides Monday evening, were expected to flood three of the power company’s substations in Bridgeport along Long Island Sound. The move will force 52,000 people to lose power.

It’s unclear as to when the power will come back on for most of these customers, although multiple officials have said it could be days. Utility workers are expected to resume full force once the storm full passed through the area.

Earlier in the day, there were reports that some UI workers were pulled from working due to the high winds, which was later confirmed by spokesman Michael West Jr.

"Yes service is being suspended in general," West said. "It is a requirement for our crews not to work above ground when the wind succeeds 40 mph."
West says this isn't just UI protocol but rather a safety concern that is required by the federal government.