Power remains out for some

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Power lines remain down on May Street in Naugatuck. CL&P crews are in Naugatuck working to clear downed power lines Wednesday and restoration efforts will begin later in the day, according to Naugatuck Mayor Robert Mezzo. –LUKE MARSHALL

As the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy continues, more than 450,000 people across the state find themselves in the dark.

As of Wednesday morning, Naugatuck still had 1,213 power outages, according to Connecticut Light & Power’s outage map. This is a reduction of more than 100 people from Tuesday afternoon.

Naugatuck Mayor Robert Mezzo explained on his blog that CL&P crews are in Naugatuck, working to clear downed power lines and restoration efforts will begin later in the day.

Mezzo said that power may be restored to certain areas sooner that others, depending on the difficulty to fix the problem and the number of customers on a particular circuit.

Naugatuck Town Hall, which had been closed Monday and Tuesday, is open and operating.

Although Naugatuck schools closed for the third day in a row, Mezzo said that he expects all of the areas that have downed wires to be fixed Wednesday, which would allow schools to open on Thursday.

“We recognize school cancellation is inconvenient for those with power, but we must prioritize everyone’s safety above all else,” Mezzo wrote.

Beacon Falls, which had not had many power outages, actually saw the number of outages increase from Tuesday afternoon by approximately 100 to 430, according to CL&P’s outage map.

Beacon Falls First Selectman Gerard Smith said in a letter on the town’s website that as of Tuesday night CL&P had not yet given him an estimate as to when the restoration would begin.

Prospect, which had the lowest number of outages in the area, saw very little change in its number of outages. According to CL&P’s outage map, the number of outages in Prospect increased by three since Tuesday to 136

Bill Quinlan, CL&P’s senior vice president for emergency preparedness, said that the damage assessments are expected to continue throughout the day.

“This is a circuit-by-circuit patrol. We have 17,000 miles of distribution line in Connecticut, and once we have inspected a sufficient amount to assess our damage and project our damage, we’ll then have a basis to determine how long it takes, how many crews do we need to drive the restoration and where should we be placing them,” Quinlan said.

Quinlan declined to give an estimate on Tuesday as to when the power might be restored across the state.

The Republican American contributed to this article.