By Andy Brophy

WESTPORT–This weekend’s nor’easter wasn’t anywhere near as impactful as the Sept. 13 storm that flooded roads, businesses and homes in Westport.

Just over an inch of rain fell in Westport from early Saturday to 4:15 p.m. Sunday – compared to seven inches in three hours on Sept. 13 – and the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce and several downtown businesses reported no impacts from the nor’easter.

Jelani Porter, an assistant manager at 2nd STREET Westport, a used clothing store on Main Street, said the store closed at noon Saturday (eight hours early) as a precaution but was open Sunday during regular hours. He said the store didn’t experience flooding or power outages.

“We’ve been fine,” he said.

Angelina Jones, an employee at The Toy Post on Post Road East, which experienced flooding during the Sept. 13 storm, said the store put up sand bags and taped doors before the nor’easter. “I’ve been here all day. We had no flooding,” she said. “The only flooding we had was from the storm two weeks ago.”

Jaclyn Marr, acting assistant manager at Madewell, a women’s clothing and accessories boutique on Main Street, also reported no issues related to the nor’easter and said Madewell maintained normal business hours this weekend.

Matthew Mandell, executive director and president of the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce, said mid-afternoon Sunday that he hadn’t been informed of any issues related to the nor’easter impacting Westport businesses.

Assistant Fire Chief Philip Hessberger said the Fire Department responded to 39 storm-related calls from 7 a.m. Saturday to 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

“The majority of our calls were for wires down or hazardous conditions,” Hessberger said. “I can tell you no injuries or accidents.”

Hessberger said Imperial Avenue and Canal Street were closed for several hours on Sunday due to flooding associated with a high tide, but they re-opened about 1:30 p.m. 

Other roads were temporarily closed due to wires down, he said.

Hessberger said about 2:30 p.m. Sunday that firefighters did not respond to trees or large branches crashing through Westport houses during the nor’easter. He said a tree fell on a house on Burr Farms Road but did not penetrate the house, so it was a matter for the homeowner’s insurance company.

Wind gusts reached 56 mph at Bridgeport’s Sikorsky Memorial Airport.

A spokesman for the Westport Police Department wasn’t available Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, as of 3 p.m. Sunday, 298 Eversource (formerly Connecticut Light & Power) customers in Westport were without power, which ranked 14th highest among the 157 Connecticut municipalities served by Eversource. At 6 a.m. Monday, only 49 Westport customers were without power.

Only three nearby municipalities had higher outages than Westport on Sunday afternoon – New Canaan at 515, Ridgefield at 1,224 and Stamford at 429, according to Eversource’s website.

Westport Library, which was closed during the Sept. 13 storm, maintained normal hours on Saturday and Sunday.

RainDrop, an app that tracks daily rainfall totals, had Westport receiving 0.87 inches of rain on Saturday and 0.20 inches of rain as of 4:15 p.m. Sunday.

Despite the seemingly tame impact on Westport, this weekend’s nor’easter compares favorably to prior nor’easters that hit Fairfield County, Chad Merrill, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in an e-mail.

Merrill said the tide reached 10.27 feet at Long Island Sound near Bridgeport Harbor around 11 a.m. Saturday, the 11th-highest crest on record and comparable to Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 when the level reached 10.13 feet. He added nor’easters in 1988 and 2007 had levels of 10.33 feet and 10.51 feet, respectively.

The peak gust of 56 mph from this weekend’s nor’easter is lower than Hurricane Sandy’s peak gust of at least 76 mph in Bridgeport, but significantly higher than the peak gust of 32 mph in the 1988 nor’easter and 38 mph in the 2007 nor’easter, Merrill’s e-mail says.

“Long story short, this nor’easter does stack up against Hurricane Sandy for its specific impacts in Fairfield County from the vantage point of the tides and peak gusts,” Merrill said in the e-mail.

Andy Brophy

Andy Brophy is an experienced Fairfield County journalist. Andy was a staff writer at The Connecticut Post for 10 years. He also wrote for the Norwalk Hour, Fairfield Minuteman, Fairfield Patch and weekly newspapers in Westport, Fairfield and Norwalk. When not reporting, Andy enjoys playing chess and listening to pianist Art Tatum. ^_.