Utility Committed To 99 Percent Power Restoration By Saturday Midnight

By John Voket

Newtown’s CL&P liaison Jacqui Borges-King told town officials at the Wednesday morning emergency operations briefing that Newtown can expect 99 percent or better electrical restoration by midnight Saturday, November 5. Just a few minutes earlier Jeff Butler, the president and CEO of CL&P, said 77 percent of its customers had been affected by the rogue snowstorm that swept in Connecticut last weekend, and by this morning 410,000 of those who lost power had been restored.

That still leaves 548,000 of the nearly one million customers statewide in the dark. As he was delivering the information during Governor Dannel Malloy’s daily press briefing, Mr Butler added that 1,041 tree and line crews were busy at work knocking the number of outages down, and 110 more crews were expected to hit the streets later today.

“This was a magnitude storm with outages higher than with Irene,” Mr Butler said. He said 730,000 customers lost power after the tropical storm, versus 955,000 after last weekend’s snow.

Here in Newtown, First Selectman Pat Llodra said it was a matter of “divine intervention” that utility crews got power restored to the Garner Correctional facility just as the generators there were beginning to fail Tuesday evening.

“We knew the warden had a ‘Plan B’ but we didn’t need that extra layer of stress,” she told fellow town officials before the briefing. The first selectman also said the image of seeing more than 100 utility trucks surrounding the staging area at Fairfield Hills was a heartening image.

Health District Director Donna Culbert told The Bee she was proud to see how neighbors and family members were pitching in to help sick, disabled, and infirm residents, and that she understood the struggle for those who made the decision to either seek medical support or to head to a shelter.

Regarding storm fallout, Gov Malloy Wednesday morning estimated the state will generate 4.2 million yards of debris as cleanup continues. In Newtown, Public Works Director Fred Hurley said the landfill will be open every day from dawn to dusk to take storm debris, and spoiled food dumpsters are being made available at Newtown High School, and the Dodgingtown and Hawleyville fire stations.

Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) are being distributed along with drinking water at the Sandy Hook Fire & Rescue headquarters on Riverside Road. Chief William Halstead said he was distributing two days worth of meals at a time to minimize inconvenience to residents, as well as traffic at the fire station.

By Wednesday morning, local volunteer fire crews had responded to more than 325 storm-related calls, with Sandy Hook and Newtown Hook & Ladder responding to the lion’s share of the dispatches.

Newtown’s emergency dispatch center was handling in excess of 400 calls per shift, according to Director of Emergency Communications Maureen Will, with many of those calls being made regarding power restoration. Mrs Llodra reassured residents that, similar to after storm Irene, no resident without power will be forgotten or left unconnected.

There were still a couple of roads completely impassable Wednesday morning, 22 of them with major obstructions, and more than 90 with compromised travel conditions like low hanging trees or wires.

The shelter at Newtown Middle School shelter is still open and staffed, and residents are encouraged to go there even if it is just to warm up, or to be with other people. Access to the middle school is available 24 hours, but lights are turned down at 10 pm.

Newtown High School is open from 8 am until 9 pm for showers. Newtown Youth Academy at Fairfield Hills and Masonicare at 139 Toddy Hill Road also have showers available for the public.

Residents may also recharge electrical devices at the high school, Masonicare, and Newtown Municipal Center at Fairfield Hills.