Thursday morning, power and trees are still down in most towns

By Wednesday night, the National Weather Service was calling it “Post-Tropical Cyclone Isaias” and declaring that it had moved into Canada and the U.S. government would no longer be reporting on its progress.
But here in the Tri-state region, Isaias was still very much present as thousands of homes and businesses remained without power, as roads remained closed due to downed wires and other debris and as work crews continued to cut up the trees and large branches that had fallen on roads and properties.
As of Thursday morning, there were no reports of lives lost as a direct result of the storm. There were some fire calls including one on Wednesday afternoon in North Canaan that involved serious injuries. Information on the outcome of that fire was not available Thursday morning.
Gas, ice and water
Of all the area towns, the two that were blessed with a modest amount of power loss were Salisbury and Millerton. Some businesses remained open in both towns — notably the gas stations. The Getty in Millerton was overflowing with cars at mid-day on Wednesday. The nearby Cumberland Farms had yellow sacks over all the gas tank nozzles, but cars were still parked in front of each of the gas tanks and every parking space in the lot was full.
The Patco station in Lakeville also had gas (and a large number of patrons, who seemed calm, polite and patient for the most part). Cars and pickup trucks were not only filling their tanks; many customers were also filling containers to take home, perhaps to use with generators and barbecue grills.
Ice and bottled water were in big demand all day Wednesday, at gas station convenience stores and grocery stores. By mid-day most stores had sold out. By the end of Wednesday, the Lakeville Patco had also shut its pumps down.
Most grocery stores were open, but with limitations. Stop & Shop in North Canaan had only emergency lights on; the freezers and refrigerated cases were all empty. Meat, dairy, frozen foods, ice cream were unavailable but shoppers came to the store looking for ice and other essentials. Sharon Farm Market was also open with restrictions. In Salisbury, LaBonne’s was up and fully stocked, with all the lights on. By mid-afternoon, the lines were long but not remarkably so. The store had already sold out of ice by that morning.
Nearby, Salisbury village businesses such as Provisions at The White Hart and Sweet William’s bakery and cafe were open. Relaxed patrons sat at outdoor tables sipping espresso drinks and eating pastries, perhaps enjoying the opportunity to feel normal in an abnormal week.
Salisbury’s good fortune
It’s not clear how Salisbury was spared so much of the damage that hit other area towns.
First Selectman Curtis Rand said Salisbury’s power outages were in the more wooded areas, around the Twin Lakes, Cooper Hill, Salmon Kill Road, and the area around the Great Falls (known as Amesville).
Rand said as far as he knew there were no injuries. A tree did fall on a moving car at Route 44 and Salmon Kill Road but the driver was unhurt.
He said the town crew has been busy clearing trees and debris off town roads. “We’ve reopened everything we can.”
Driving around Salisbury and Falls Village between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Senior Reporter Patrick L. Sullivan observed that town road crews had been through and had cleared trees from roadways. There was a tree on the utility wires on Brinton Hill Road in Salisbury, and a pile of downed limbs encroaching on one lane of state route 126 between Routes 7 and 63.
Smells like Christmas
Lime Rock Station Road, where Sunday’s tornado had taken down an estimated hundreds of evergreens, “it smelled like the workshop at Housatonic Valley Regional High School when the FFA students and alumni are making Christmas wreaths,” Sullivan said, echoing a sentiment others had expressed.
Lime Rock Station is in Falls Village. On Wednesday morning, Falls Village First Selectman Henry Todd, reached just as he was heading out to tour the damage at about 10 a.m., said he was unaware of any injuries or serious damage to homes at that moment.
Todd said the entire town, with the exceptions of Amy Road, Kellogg Road (one side), Main Street and Beebe Hill Road, was without power. Todd said his understanding was that Eversource would start working on Canaan Mountain Road, then Undermountain Road and so on.
Driving around the region on Wednesday, an impressive amount of fallen trees and branches had already been cleared and many roads had been opened. But there was much work still to do and even by Wednesday evening it was difficult to travel from one town to another, especially with Route 7 closed between the Covered Bridge in Cornwall and Housatonic Valley Regional High School (very close to Lime Rock Station Road) in Falls Village. Sections of Route 44 were also closed, notably a part of the road that runs through the center of North Canaan.
Good and bad news, Sharon
In Sharon, an enormous tree limb had fallen on the historic Green, across from Town Hall. That section of Route 41/44 through the center of town was closed off; drivers were using the narrow, one-way Upper Main Street as a two-way alternate route.
Sharon Valley Road was closed off on Wednesday afternoon. Nearby on Rout 343, Paley’s Farm Market was open for business after having been hit hard by Sunday’s tornado. The winds from that weather event had ripped the covers off the farm’s greenhouses and twisted the metal frames. Several large trees behind the market had fallen and were being cleared up on Wednesday.
Owner Sarah (Paley) Coon and her brother, former owner and farm founder Charlie Paley, were there on Wednesday and seemed still stunned by Sunday’s damage but grateful that it hadn’t been worse.
On Sunday, the destroyed greenhouses were empty, Coon said. If the tornado had come through earlier in the year, in March or April, “That would have been it for this year,” she said ruefully.
Absence of power workers
On Wednesday, driving around the region, the usual abundance of Eversource workers and trucks was absent. Two Frontier telecommunications repair vans were spotted. Only one power company worker was seen. Eversource said the damage from Isaias ranked among the worst the state had ever experienced.
Many Northwest Corner residents still remember the October snowstorm of 2011, which dumped about 2 feet of snow statewide and left hundreds of thousands of customers without power for between 5 and 11 days.
Eversource has not yet offered estimates on when customers will be back on line.
In an email on Wednesday, the company said, “This storm’s impact, in terms of Eversource customers affected in Connecticut, is one of the largest on record. As a result, we are asking customers to prepare for multiple days without power.”
The company said on Wednesday that it was doing assessments from the air of the extent of the damage.
One Eversource worker was on Route 7 in Falls Village on Thursday morning. He pulled around into the 50 Main St. station and took a moment to speak with The Lakeville Journal’s Janet Manko.
“We are all here who are always assigned to these towns,” he said, “but it’s a lot for one guy to do. And everyone cleaning up what is like a disaster area has to be careful. There can be wires that are dangerous and you can’t see where they are.”
He said the scope of the cleanup is the worst he’s seen, even worse than following Sandy and others from recent years.
Governor, AG take action
The power company had announced a rate increase last week. Attorney General William Tong and Gov. Ned Lamont immediately expressed anger with the rate hike, which was then suspended by the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA).
Some area power customers complained that,when they tried to call Eversource to report an outage, they were left on hold with a repeated message in which the power company expressed unhappiness with the decision to deny the rate hike.
Lamont declared a statewide state of emergency on Wednesday and then appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for a presidential emergency declaration.
“Approval of an emergency declaration would allow the state to request direct federal assistance to supplement state and local efforts to save lives and protect public health and safety during this ongoing crisis,” according to an announcement from the governor’s office.
“The governor’s request also includes a potential 75 percent federal reimbursement of Category B state and local emergency protective measures.”
Lamont also announced an investigation into Eversource and its efforts to restore power to the state. A press release on Aug. 5 said, “The governor said that the companies’ response to the storm has been wholly inadequate and does not meet the obligations for the critical resources they are responsible for providing on behalf of Connecticut residents. He wants to know what specific steps the companies took in the lead up to Tropical Storm Isaias, which had been forecast to impact Connecticut several days prior to making landfall and remained relatively on the track that meteorologists had predicted.”
The news release said Lamont is asking PURA to:
• Consider whether the utilities were adequately prepared and have the resources they need to respond to significant weather events;
• Evaluate their response and whether it met regulatory and statutory requirements;
• Determine whether resources that were invested into their outage response system was prudent in light of the recent system failures; and
• Determine whether civil penalties should be applied
COVID-19 continues
Meanwhile, the governor’s office continued to offer updates on the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths, which are still rising. On Wednesday, the report said there are 1,543 confirmed cases in Litchfield County, up from 1,537 on Tuesday and 1,535 on Monday. The number of COVID-19 deaths has remained steady for several weeks at 117 in Litchfield County; and at present there is only one person reported hospitalized because of the coronavirus.
Outage update
Eversource’s outage listing was not accurate at some points during the storm and in its immediate aftermath. As of Thursday morning, it seemed to be working again. At 10:30 a.m., the impact on Northwest Corner towns was reported as:
• Canaan (Falls Village), 74.07% customers affected (971 out of 1,311)
• Cornwall, 99.09% customers affected (1,200 out of 1,211)
• Kent, 90.04% customers affected (1,944 out of 2,159)
• North Canaan, 84.84% customers affected (1,248 out of 1,471)
• Salisbury, 40.45% customers affected (1,217 out of 3,009)
• Sharon, 82.48% customers affected (1,789 out of 2,169)
The list of towns and impacts can be found at https://outagemap.eversource.com. If you are able to access the internet from a computer, you can see the town-by-town listing by clicking Connecticut under Customer Outages in the menu to the left of the map. If you are on a mobile device, touch Menu, then Customer Outages, and finally Connecticut.
Some towns are offering charging stations. In Sharon, for example, charging for mobile devices was available on Wednesday at the firehouse.
The legal case, if approved by the court, would nullify a 2024 zoning regulation change that allows hotels in the RR1 zone via special permit application.
LAKEVILLE — At nearly 11 p.m. on Monday night, Oct. 20, Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted 4-1 to approve, with conditions, Aradev LLC’s controversial application to redevelop the Wake Robin Inn.
The decision came more than 4 hours after the meeting began at 6:30 p.m., and more than a year since Aradev submitted its first application to expand the longstanding country inn. The approved plans call for a new 2,000-square-foot cabin, an event space, a sit-down restaurant and fast-casual counter, a spa, library, lounge, gym and seasonal pool.
Aradev withdrew its first application in December 2024 after P&Z indicated it would likely deny it based on concerns about sewer approval, noise levels and the general size and intensity of the proposed development. During a pre-application meeting held with Aradev in January 2025, the Commission informed the developer that those three topics were the cruxes of both P&Z’s and the public’s objection to the first proposal.
The nine-page, 40-condition draft resolution that was ultimately approved on Monday night states that in the revised application, those “three major areas of concern have been addressed.” The document, which is available for public viewing on P&Z’s “Meeting Documents” web page, lists a number of changes that have eased doubts: a reduction in the number of auxiliary cabins, a tightening of the central campus that brings external elements like the spa and pool closer to the core of the development, a thorough sound analysis and noise pollution mitigation plan, approval from the town’s Water Pollution Control Authority, and moving the “event barn,” once planned to be a free-standing structure, into the main inn building expansion.
In the Commission’s deliberations following the closure of the public hearing for the revised application in September, several commissioners expressed their satisfaction with Aradev’s responsiveness to the commission’s and community’s concerns. During the first deliberation session on Oct. 7, Chair Michael Klemens said he found the new plans to be “much better designed this go around,” though he did qualify that the proposed development was “still large.”
At the same meeting, commissioner Allen Cockerline voiced his approval of the renewed application’s technical details, such as its sound survey, a robust stormwater management plan, and relocating the event facility inside the main building, which he described as a “very, very positive move.”
Vice Chair Cathy Shyer, though, felt differently. “The bottom line is, this is a big development,” she said during the Oct. 7 discussion. “It’s as big as the last one.”
During the seven public hearing sessions that took place in August and September, cries that the revised application had not mitigated in any meaningful way its most invasive components — namely, the “inappropriate” size and scale of the development in a rural residential (zoned RR1) neighborhood — were a common refrain from neighbors of the inn.
Over the course of those seven meetings, and an additional six during the hearing process for Aradev’s first application last year, P&Z heard hours of testimony from the community, the vast majority of it in opposition to the project.
Shyer echoed those sentiments at the Oct. 20 meeting: “Some things just don’t belong in some places.”
She expressed her frustration at the Commission for its debate over conditioning the approval to remove three of the four cottages in the site plans, which she felt was a red herring towards the broader issue. “This project is so big and so intense that taking three keys away is not making any difference.”
The meeting eventually took a 45-minute recess to allow Land Use Director Abby Conroy to draft a new resolution that included the stipulation to remove the three cottages, leaving only one still included in the plan. Upon resuming the meeting at 10:30 p.m., Klemens asked for a motion to approve the resolution, which was followed by a lengthy silence before Cockerline eventually offered it up. The vote passed 4-1, with Shyer voting no.
The moment marked the end of an application process that has seen heightened emotions, community organizing that includes two petitions against the project with hundreds of signatures each, and litigation against P&Z for a regulation change that allowed the proposal to see review in the first place.
The legal case, if approved by the court, would nullify a 2024 zoning regulation change that allows hotels in the RR1 zone via special permit application. Klemens said that, because of this, “the applicant is proceeding totally at its own risk.”
P&Z’s attorney Charles Andres stated that he believed it was unlikely Aradev would even be able to begin construction in the next several months as the case sees court review: “It’s highly unrealistic that they will proceed while that is still pending.”
SALISBURY — Amanda Cannon, age 100, passed away Oct. 15, 2025, at Noble Horizons. She was the wife of the late Jeremiah Cannon.
Amanda was born Aug. 20, 1925, in Brooklyn, New York the daughter of the late Karl and Ella Husslein.
She was widowed at the age of 31 and worked as a bookkeeper for the Standard Oil Company and other oil companies in New York City until she retired at age 72.
Amanda moved to Noble Horizons in 2013 to live near her daughter Diane and son-in-law (the late) Raymond Zelazny.
She enjoyed her time in the Northwest Corner and was an avid nature lover, albeit considered herself a native New Yorker as she was born and resided in NYC for 88 years.
She was a faithful parishioner of St. Mary’s Church in Lakeville and attended Mass regularly until the age of 99.
Amanda was the grandmother of (the late) Jesse Morse and is survived by her daughter, Diane Zelazny, her grandsons, Adam Morse, Raymond Morse and his wife Daron and their daughter and her great granddaughter Cecelia Morse.
A Mass of Christian Burial will take place on Thursday, Oct. 23, 11 a.m. at St Mary’s Church in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Memorial donations may be made to St. Mary’s Church.
The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.
LAKEVILLE — Barbara Meyers DelPrete, 84, passed away Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, at her home. She was the beloved wife of George R. DelPrete for 62 years.
Mrs. DelPrete was born in Burlington, Iowa, on May 31, 1941, daughter of the late George and Judy Meyers. She lived in California for a time and had been a Lakeville resident for the past 55 years.
Survivors, in addition to her husband, George, include son, George R. DelPrete II, daughter, Jena DelPrete Allee, and son Stephen P. DelPrete. Grandchildren; Trey, Cassidy, and Meredith DelPrete, Jack, Will and Finn Allee, and Ali and Nicholas DelPrete.
A Funeral Mass was held at St. Mary’s Church, Lakeville, on Saturday, Oct. 4. May she Rest in Peace.
Ryan Funeral Home, 255 Main St., Lakeville, is in care of arrangements.
To offer an online condolence, please visit ryanfhct.com
SHARON — Shirley Anne Wilbur Perotti, daughter of George and Mabel (Johnson) Wilbur, the first girl born into the Wilbur family in 65 years, passed away on Oct. 5, 2025, at Noble Horizons.
Shirley was born on Aug. 19, 1948 at Sharon Hospital.
She was raised on her parents’ poultry farm (Odge’s Eggs, Inc.).
After graduating from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, she worked at Litchfield County National Bank and Colonial Bank.
She married the love of her life, John, on Aug. 16, 1969, and they lived on Sharon Mountain for more than 50 years.
Shirley enjoyed creating the annual family Christmas card, which was a coveted keepsake.She also enjoyed having lunch once a month with her best friends, Betty Kowalski, Kathy Ducillo, and Paula Weir.
In addition to John, she is survived by her three children and their families; Sarah Medeiros, her husband, Geoff, and their sons, Nick and Andrew, of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Shelby Diorio, her husband, Mike, and their daughters, Addie, Lainey and Lyla, of East Canaan, Connecticut,Jeffrey Perotti, his wife, Melissa, and their daughters, Annie, Lucy and Winnie, of East Canaan. Shirley also leaves her two brothers, Edward Wilbur and his wife Joan, and David Wilbur; two nieces, three nephews, and several cousins.
At Shirley’s request, services will be private.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Sharon Woman’s Club Scholarship Fund, PO Box 283, Sharon, CT 06069.
The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.