Connecticut Sifts Through Wreckage From Two Tornadoes, Macroburst

May 17--The National Weather Service said late Wednesday that this week's killer storm included two separate tornadoes that struck four Connecticut communities -- Beacon Falls, Hamden, Oxford and Southbury.

While others, including Brookfield, were hit with macrobursts packing "maximum wind speeds of 100-110 mph." A macroburst is an area of downward-moving wind that can cause damage comparable to a tornado.

Two people were killed during Tuesday night's storm and residents throughout the state spent Wednesday morning sifting through their damaged homes and businesses, recounting harrowing stories of how they endured the quick-moving storm that sent gusting winds, drenching rain and hail as big as baseballs.

More than a dozen school systems -- and more roads -- remained closed Thursday morning, and some 64,000 Eversource customers, mostly in southwestern Connecticut, were without power.

The weather service said teams were dispatched Wednesday to survey damage in Brookfield, Danbury, New Milford, Newtown, Oxford, Ridgefield, Southbury, Winsted, Bethany, Hamden, Cheshire and Durham.

"It has been determined that an EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 110 mph moved along a 9.5-mile path between Beacon Falls and Hamden. Numerous trees were uprooted along this path," the weather service said in a statement.

The tornado that struck Southbury and Oxford traveled along a 4.5-mile path and had winds that reached 100 mph.

The macroburst that pummeled Brookfield around 5 p.m. Tuesday may actually have had stronger winds.

At peak ferocity, the macroburst's winds whipped at speeds up to 110 mph, the National Weather Service determined Wednesday. Two people were crushed to death in Danbury and New Fairfield after trees fell on their vehicles, according to local officials and police.

On Wednesday, many residents still lacked power. As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, Eversource reported 71,597 homes were without electricity. By 8:30 a.m. Thursday, the number was down to 64,194; 100 percent, 99 percent, and 93 percent of customers in Seymour, Bethany and New Fairfield, respectively, were in the dark, the power company said.

Travel remained slow and circuitous in the Hamden and Brookfield areas Wednesday, where felled trees and wires left many roads impassable. Utility companies scrambled to power down live wires, emergency crews began sawing the brush into manageable pieces, and frustrated motorists drove in circles. A day earlier, thousands of Connecticut-bound commuters were stranded at Grand Central Terminal when Metro-North suspended service along its New Haven Line.

On Wednesday night, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a Declaration of Civil Preparedness Emergency to assist the state and its municipalities with response and recovery efforts.

The emergency order will give state agencies flexibility in assisting municipalities with recovery. He also directed emergency management officials to begin determining whether the federal thresholds to request a Major Disaster Declaration from President Donald Trump can be met, which could permit the state and its eligible municipalities to receive federal aid.

"Yesterday's storms caused a lot of damage to infrastructure, public facilities, and private property," Malloy said. "We have already begun the process to collect damage costs. This declaration will provide our state and municipal agencies with additional authority to help residents in the affected towns to expedite debris removal and deal with the ongoing restoration efforts."

The governor visited Brookfield earlier in the day and warned that power outages could last for days.

"If you get it back quickly, you're one of the lucky ones," he said. "I think there are going to be a lot of people that are going to be without power for days ... Everything that can easily be brought back has been -- now we're in for a slog."

In the Candlewood Lake area of Brookfield, where the storms either decapitated or toppled many of the neighborhood's massive trees, residents spent Wednesday trying to repair or cart away the damage. In some cases, there was only so much they could do.

Bob and Deborah Marks watched as contractors lopped branches off an enormous oak that had fallen on their home. In their backyard, every tree appeared to be down. Bob went to work Wednesday morning with a handheld saw, hoping to clear a path for his dog to run outside.

"How much can you do with a Sawzall?" he asked.

His goal Wednesday was to get the tree off the roof to ease stress on the damaged structure. The couple's insurance company had suggested they get a hotel room, but they found nothing available nearby.

"We've got to tarp it up and see if we can secure it somehow," Bob said, pointing at joists that had punched holes in the ceiling of their bedroom. He gazed out the back window at the devastation behind the home, looking and saying nothing.

His wife, Deborah, was in better spirits. "I always wanted a skylight in my bedroom," she said.

Down the street from the Marks' home, a group of neighbors were attacking a tangle of trees with a saw. Justin Luis had brought out the saw earlier Wednesday, and neighbors helped him haul away logs and branches as he cut.

"He put some chewing tobacco in his mouth, started the saw and went to it," Rick Garofalo said of Luis, a neighbor he met for the first time Wednesday. "He's the man."

Garofalo, who was home when the storm roared through, was convinced his neighborhood had experienced a tornado.

"It was the classic freight train sound," he said. "You could hear it roaring through like it was coming through your house. The next sound was trees cracking."

In Hamden, Route 10 was swamped with tree limbs and wires that residents avoided like poisonous snakes as they walked around their neighborhood, unable to drive. Hamden police had blocked off about a half-mile stretch of the road Wednesday as utility crews worked to power down live wires, which sagged from poles knocked askew by Tuesday's winds. The road, which smelled like a Christmas tree lot as workers sawed the brush into manageable chunks, has since reopened.

Lorraine Denaro, 61, emerged from the thicket around noon, having walked about two miles from her home to a dog-sitting gig across town. She and her boyfriend had come home around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday when a tree crumpled the Subaru they'd vacated just a minute earlier.

"If we'd been in that car one more minute -- if I'd gone back for my bag, or something -- I think we would've been crushed," she said.

Like all of the homes in her neighborhood, Denaro's was without power Wednesday afternoon. At the height of storm, 122,000 Connecticut homes lacked electricty.

An Eversource spokesman said the storm will require "a multiple-day restoration."

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," he said.

As of Wednesday night, school districts in the hardest hit areas of the state had canceled classes for Thursday. Hamden, Newtown, New Milford, New Fairfield, North Haven, Oxford and Regional School District 16 will not have school Thursday.

In Southbury, the sole Connecticut town to lose power entirely Tuesday, Heidi Kossakowski and her daughter, Julia, were charging their phones Wednesday at an emergency shelter set up at the town's Parks and Recreation Department.

Kossakowski, a teacher at Brass City Charter School in Waterbury, was about a half-mile from her home when the storm hit. Trees began bending, she recalled, and debris started hitting her car. She made it home and rode out the storm with her daughter in their basement.

Jill Sloane Bhatia, too, took shelter in a Southbury basement -- the basement of her 100-acre farm, Willow Creek Farm, where she'd just finished feeding her two miniature donkeys when she saw what looked like a tornado cresting a hill not far away.

Sloane Bhatia, who has renters on her property, took shelter with her tenants in the basement.

When she emerged a few hours later and surveyed the land, Sloane Bhatia found all of her animals -- 55 horses and other livestock -- were safe, her buildings untouched.

"It's a miracle. It really is," she said. "There's only two trees down."

At Cook Hill Elementary School in Wallingford, a man who gave his name only as Tony watched utility workers try to untangle wires from a pickup -- his granddaughter's -- that had been impaled by a light post. The post's steel head was buried in the truck cab like a hatchet.

His granddaughter, who works at the school, always parked beneath the steel light post to feel safe leaving the school at night, he said. On Tuesday, when the wind began picking up around 5 p.m., a tree blew down, which knocked down a utility pole, which knocked down the light post.

"Like dominos," Tony said. "You can put that in your paper -- like dominoes."

Courant staff writers Bill Leukhardt, Dave Altimari, Nicholas Rondinone and Christine Dempsey contributed to this story.

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