September 15, 2011
Tropical Storm Irene
It was certainly a challenge to get through the aftermath of Irene, but I’m happy to report that Colchester did very well. In any emergency, the town’s first priority is to keep people safe and we were able to accomplish this by avoiding any serious injuries.
Although the percentage of outages Colchester had was not as great as some other towns, we still had to deal with a frustratingly slow response from CL&P. The CL&P workers we had assigned to us worked very hard and we owe them our thanks. My frustration lies with the lack of information provided to the town and the long wait until more resources arrived. There will be many questions asked over the next weeks and months about the response from CL&P and all the leaders of Connecticut’s towns want answers.
Immediately after the storm, town crews were dispatched all over town to clear roadways and conduct a preliminary damage assessment. Our procedures dictate that CL&P must verify the lines are de-energized prior to our crews working on the tree in contact with them. This slowed down the operation to clear roadways as there were a limited number of CL&P crews available. In fact, it was several days before all the roadways were cleared of debris and our town crews worked tirelessly to get the job done.
Since the town can’t control how quickly the power gets restored, we focused on the things we could control. The emergency team, which included Superintendent Loiselle, determined early on that it would impractical and unsafe to start school on schedule and moved the start date to give the town some time to recover.
The next challenge faced was food and water. Although most residents had enough supplies to get through the outages, some did not. We were distributing food from the food bank at town hall and we had an occasional food distribution post in Westchester in conjunction with the American Red Cross. Potable water was also made available at Fire Company 1 24/7.
Ice was a major issue for many people as there is simply no way companies can supply ice to 500,000 people. The town was able to obtain a limited supply of ice which we could only distribute at first to those needing to refrigerate medications. After ice was made available to those with medical needs, we made it available to all at Fire Company 1.
With food and water made available, we were able to take care of other needs. The showers at Bacon Academy were opened up to the public for those without power and hundreds of people took advantage of this. We also kept the library open on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday so people without power would have a place to charge their phones and access the internet. Residents also had a lot of debris to dispose of, so we kept the transfer station open all week long and did not charge for any green waste, branches, or leafy debris.
Communication was also a challenge throughout the situation. We put out regular e-mails, sent information to the media, posted on our website, and passed out flyers at local businesses. The entire town staff worked very hard throughout this ordeal and all hands were on deck to help us through this. However, there are always things we can do better. We will be conducting debriefing sessions with those that were part of the response and see what lessons were learned for the next time we face a situation like this one.
- Gregg Schuster
First Selectman
Previous Selectman Notes can be viewed at
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