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There were two bad, one-vehicle accidents in Connecticut in the early hours of Saturday — in Trumbull and New Britain, both involving 19-year-old drivers — but the state avoided holiday weekend traffic deaths, state police said today.

ACCIDENTS: State police investigated 275, two with serious injuries, from Friday through 7 a.m. Monday.

DUI ARRESTS: 27, with 12 involving accidents, in same period.

TODAY’S CHALLENGE: Steady rain and possible flooding.

As people returned to the work-a-day world today, however, they had to cope with steady rain and the prospect of flooding.

The National Weather Service had a flood watch in effect through this afternoon for Hartford, Tolland, and Windham counties in Connecticut, as well as several Massachusetts counties.

The weather service was predicting 1 to 2 inches of rain “over much of southern New England, with localized amounts up to 4 inches or more.”

Interstate 84 eastbound was closed in East Hartford this morning after a tractor-trailer jack-knifed near Exit 56. No injuries were reported, but state police urged commuters to seek alternate routes. The highway was reopened around 9 a.m.

From Friday through 11:59 p.m.. Monday, state police said they made 30 arrests on charges of driving while intoxicated, 11 of which involved accidents. They said they wrote 377 speeding tickets and 819 tickets for other violations, such as failure to wear seat belts, distracted driving, and following too closely.

Overall, state police said, they responded to 6,153 calls for service in that period.

Of the 345 accidents they investigated, two involved serious injuries.

The first was reported at 2:28 a.m. Saturday, when a midsize Ford Fusion sedan carrying five teenagers ran off Route 15, the Merritt Parkway, in Trumbull. The car was going north in the left lane but ran off the right side of the road, hit a wood-beam guardrail, and ended up facing the wrong way by the Frenchtown Road overpass, where it caught fire, state police said.

One passenger, an 18-year-old female, suffered a skull fracture and a broken neck despite wearing her seat belt, state police said. Another passenger, a 19-year-old male, suffered a skull fracture and cuts to the head, and a third passenger, a 19-year-old female, suffered a right “orbital fracture” to the bone around the eye, and broken right wrist, even though both were wearing seat belts, police added.

All three of them were taken by ambulance to hospitals, as were the driver and one other passenger, both 19-year-old males, who also both wearing seat belts and suffered less-serious injuries, police said.

The New Britain accident was reported just over an hour later, at 3:36 a.m. Saturday, in the eastbound lanes of Route 72, less than a mile before Route 9. A midsize Toyota Camry sedan hit a metal-beam guardrail on the left shoulder, then ricocheted into a concrete bridge support on the right shoulder and back to the metal guardrail, where it came to rest, state police said.

One passenger, a 17-year-old New Britain girl, was seriously injured and was taken to New Britain Hospital for treatment. It wasn’t known whether she was wearing a seat belt, state police said.

The driver, a 19-year-old New Britain boy who was wearing a seat belt, suffered a suspected minor injury and was also taken to New Britain Hospital, police said, while three other passengers refused treatment.

For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.

Alex covers Glastonbury, as well as Hartford Superior Court, the federal courts, and the appellate courts, and handles freedom-of-information cases. Alex joined the JI in September 1985. He graduated from Brown University, and enjoys bicycle riding.

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