The West Hartford Office of Emergency Management has issued an alert ahead of a storm expected to impact the area beginning Thursday, Dec. 22.

Submitted

The West Hartford Office of Emergency Management is alerting residents and businesses to the potential for strong winds and heavy rain followed by a flash freeze that can lead to icing conditions beginning on Thursday, Dec. 22 and into Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. This weather pattern creates the potential for a loss of power along with challenging driving conditions.

The forecast for the West Hartford area begins with heavy rain late Thursday afternoon. The weather will turn considerably colder on Friday as the winds increase. As the day progresses, the temperatures will continue to fall and could create icing conditions for late Friday afternoon into the evening.

Please take time to secure any items that can blow away and cause damage including outdoor furniture, trampolines and holiday decorations. Inflatable decorations are particularly vulnerable and should be brought indoors or securely fastened.

For information on what to do during a power outage, please visit our webpage.

Can we reach you during an emergency?

If you have not already done so, please sign up for West Hartford’s Community Alert Notification System. Important emergency messages will be sent to you by text, email and/or voice message to your cell phone, home phone or business. If you are signed up, consider sharing this information with friends and family so they are as well.

Eversource also has an alert notification program regarding power outages. You can sign up here to receive outage alerts via text, email or phone. With text alerts, you can quickly report an outage (text OUT to 23129) or request updates (text STAT to 23129). Eversource will send you receive regular updates during an outage including the cause of the outage, status updates and power restoration completion.

When a power outage occurs, you can also click on the Eversource outage area map to get information on the cause of an outage and estimated restoration times.

“We recognize the timing of this storm, right before Christmas, is less than ideal and we’re taking all necessary actions now so our team is ready to respond to whatever this storm may bring,” President of Eversource Connecticut Steve Sullivan said in a statement. “We’ll have crews prepositioned at our work centers throughout the state before the storm hits so they can immediately get to any damage locations and restore power as quickly as possible. Our employees who work in the field and behind the scenes are ready to give up their holiday time off to ensure our customers can enjoy their Christmas weekend.”

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