Update: Downed Trees Knock Out Power to Hundreds in Middlefield

Connecticut Light and Power crews spent much of Friday afternoon and evening restoring power to more than a thousand customers in Middlefield.

At 4 p.m. Friday, 1102 homes and businesses - more than half of the CL&P customers in town - were without electricity. 

"Just before 1 p.m., a customer was cutting down a tree along Maple Street (in Rockfall), taking it down onto some of our wires," CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross said.

About 70 customers were affected by the outage, which took several hours to restore.

More than a thousand customers lost power around 3:15 p.m., after a tree apparently fell on its own along Baileyville Road (Patch had previously reported that CL&P had been called to the area of Strickland Road for a report of trees down on wires).

Chris of Middlefield said he watched the tree topple over in his neighbor's yard.

"No one was cutting trees or anything. It fell toward Baileyville Road and took down some major lines. We lost power immediately," he said. (see photo)

First Selectman Jon Brayshaw, who lives in the Baileyville section of Middlefield, said the tree may have given out due to the wet ground. 

"You should've seen this thing, it was big. It came right down on the wires," he said.

Gross said it is not uncommon for trees to fall after several days of rain.

By 9 p.m. Friday crews had restored power to all customers in the town.