About 7,400 Danburians Without Power, 11 Roads Closed

If the roads are clear, if the wires are safe and the children are safe, "The buses will roll Monday," said Emergency Management Director Paul Estefan Friday morning.

He said the city is checking Stadley Rough Elementary School Friday to make sure its power is functioning properly.

"With that checked, all the schools are back online," Estefan said.

The Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut reported that both the Boughton Street Y and the Bethel Y on Grassy Plain Street are open. The Y pool on Boughton Street will reopen at noon Friday.

The school system's administrative office is still without power, but a crew is working to replace a downed poll on Beaverbrook Road. Once the pole is up, the wires are reattached and the circuit working, the administrative offices will reopen.

Estefan said the city had 90 roads blocked at one point. Eleven are blocked Friday morning. On Thursday morning more than 15,000 homes were without power. That number is now down to 7,400 homes.

Estefan said much of the outage is in southern Danbury near Ridgefield, where there is no power to some houses on Miry Brook Road, Carriage House, Spruce Mountain, Cannon Ball, George Washington Highway, and other roads down there. Wooster School and Federal Express are both without power.

"That's a curcuit problem in Ridgefield. Don't even get me started on that," Estefan said.

The city was able to open Route 37 into New Fairfield Thursday evening, Estefan said, and that major road was cut because of problems replacing a downed utility pole. The pole belonged to AT&T, Estefan said, and he called them repeatedly for a crew and he got no help. Eventually, he convinced CL&P to replace the AT&T pole. Then he couldn't reach AT&T to reattach their downed wires.

"I had to call the Emergency Operations Center in Hartford. They had to call AT&T," Estefan said. "I'm not happy with AT&T right now. I'm not happy with Comcast either."

Estefan said reaching someone in charge and getting help from AT&T and Comcast has been nearly impossible.

"CL&P is not a problem. I had to fight to get AT&T," Estefan said.

The city's pump stations for water and sewer are all on line, as are the city's reservoirs and sewer treatment plant. He said the city's general infrastructure is operating safely.

"The city's in better shape," Estefan said. "We're not done."