Code Red Expanding—

Lyddy Offers No Sympathy To CL&P During Post Storm Hearing

By John Voket

With the after effects of Tropical Storm Irene still vivid in the memories and conversations of Newtowners, both local and state government officials are moving forward to address shortcomings that may have substantial implications if the community ever faces another incident like the late August disaster that cut power and closed roads, in some cases for nearly a week.

Representative Chris Lyddy told The Bee September 21 that he is “not at all sympathetic to CL&P and the fire they are getting right now from the public.”

 “I am, however, incredibly sympathetic to the thousands of Newtown residents who went without power for a week,” Rep Lyddy said. “Not only did this create an inconvenience for people, including a loss of revenue for many small businesses, but it also created public health and public safety concerns.”

The state lawmaker and town resident said he appreciated all the time and energy the line crews, volunteers, police, and local emergency personnel spent to mitigate the impact of not only this storm but also the slow assessment and recovery of CL&P.

 “In talking with people, it was not the unprecedented storm that left them upset,” he added. “It was the perception of a lackluster response to the unprecedented storm that left people upset. And I am right there with them.”

To a much more comprehensive degree, these concerns were woven through a four-page testimony that Rep Lyddy provided during the first of two hearings that were conducted by four committees of the General Assembly. The participating lawmakers including Rep Lyddy expected to hear from representatives of utility companies, workers, municipalities, and members of the public at the hearings on Mondays, September 19 and 26.

Gov Malloy has also appointed a panel that will review how the state, municipalities, and the utilities responded to Irene. That State Team Organized for the Review of Management of Irene — or STORM Irene assessment team — comprises a group of people with diverse professional backgrounds in the military, disaster relief, municipal government, nonprofit, and labor sectors.

They will review the performance of the state and its partners — including the utilities and municipalities — in terms of the preparedness and response and recovery efforts. To ensure that this review encompasses more than just the most recent event, STORM Irene members will also be tasked with looking more broadly at the state’s disaster preparedness and response apparatus.

In his testimony, Rep Lyddy highlighted three points: communication, public health concerns, and the failure to fully realize and utilize volunteers that may have eased the burden on some or many residents. In his assessment of communication, Rep Lyddy said local municipalities took measures to ensure their residents knew about recovery efforts to support those who were without power, food, water, and other commodities.

“While I applaud the towns and media outlets for their efforts, I must point out that I was taken aback by Connecticut Light and Power’s inability to effectively communicate with their customer base and local elected officials. This highlights a gaping hole in our emergency preparedness,” Rep Lyddy testified. “For example, while Newtown residents waited in the dark, Connecticut Light and Power offered vague, conflicting, and often times misleading information to our Emergency Operations Team. This not only made it very difficult for local officials to trust Connecticut Light and Power, but it also made it very difficult for municipal officials to communicate Connecticut Light and Power’s message to our constituencies.”

Ideas For Improvement

One of Rep Lyddy’s suggestions to improve the dissemination of good information would be to have a centralized statewide system that could track such incidents during emergencies.

“Currently, the State of Connecticut has an ‘Interactive Travel Information Map’ that should be expanded and utilized during times of emergencies,” Rep Lyddy said. He also suggested the state make marked improvements to its own statewide emergency communications system.

“While Newtown utilizes the Code Red Emergency Notification System, the state is connected with the Everbridge System that allegedly is backlogged and inefficient,” Rep Lyddy stated.

Regarding public health concerns, Rep Lyddy pointed to one section of Newtown that was issued an advisory to boil their water during the recovery phase after the storm.

“Unfortunately, the section of town that the State Department of Public Health noticed in the press was incorrect and misleading,” he said. “This created an unnecessary stir for some residents and a lack of urgency for others who in fact needed to be noticed about the advisory.”

Rep Lyddy also illustrated the importance of identifying and responding with priority to those whose health and lives might be compromised by lack of access to their properties, or lack of water and power to support compromised health conditions. He cited the case of an individual who was “eight months pregnant trapped in her house without any access to leave because there are trees and wires down.”

“Now picture that same woman hiking through the woods to borrow a car to get to work because she could not afford to miss a day,” Rep Lyddy stated. “In Newtown, we did not have to imagine this as it was our reality.”

Looking back on his experience and observations, Rep Lyddy also concluded that “mobilizing, training, and deploying volunteers is perhaps one of the most underutilized supports in any emergency, this one included.”

He referenced the Second Company Governor’s Horse Guard, a CERT unit that is able to provide support functions to the state during times of emergency.

“Newtown needed these volunteers to help distribute commodities and ensure the public was kept safe and healthy; however, the town was denied their request to activate this CERT team for support,” Rep Lyddy said. “This is unconscionable at a time of great need and I could not be more disappointed with this decision.”

He also said the state should have utilized volunteers to secure critical commodities for Newtown and surrounding communities.

“While I appreciate the state establishing a commodities distribution center in East Hartford, it was very difficult to access these critical supplies,” Rep Lyddy concluded. “If we cannot get these resources to the people, they are no good.”

(Read the entire testimony from Rep Lyddy on line at Newtownbee.com.)

Code Red Renewal

Locally, First Selectman Pat Llodra was assessing the vital communication link provided by the town’s Code Red vendor, and has decided to re-contract and step-up the level of service from that emergency communication vendor.

Mrs Llodra said Newtown’s current Code Red contract, which expires in November, permitted 25,000 minutes of communication time for a $5,000 annual fee, but the extensive need to keep in touch with residents during the prolonged post-storm period drove Newtown’s annual usage to more than 156,000 minutes.

The first selectman said it is her intention to renew the Code Red contract to an unlimited minutes plan at $15,000 per year for three years. As a result, she has negotiated to have the extra $62,000 in overtime usage charges absorbed into the new contract so there will be no outright surcharge for the time used during the post-storm phase.

As Rep Lyddy pointed out in his testimony, an alternative system used by some state agencies including the Garner Correctional facility was severely overextended during the hours and days after Irene hit.

That system, called Everbridge, is virtually a no-cost alternative that distributes emergency messages in a queue based on a first come, first served basis, so Mrs Llodra said she knew that during the post-storm period, some notifications took “hours and hours” before they were sent to individual subscribers.

“If our objective is timely and reliable communication, we need to have a system to do it,” Mrs Llodra said, adding that she will find the funds to add to the local Emergency Management Department to fully fund the new Code Red contract.

Mrs Llodra reported on the Code Red upgrade to the Legislative Council on September 21, as well as affirming her belief that at least 70 percent of storm-related costs the town has incurred will be covered through Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA) reimbursements.

She said that through September 1, the town registered $191,000 in unexpected costs, and that virtually all of those costs fell into categories qualified as reimbursable under FEMA emergency management criteria.

But the first selectman also warned that the larger of two anticipated FEMA claims has yet to be calculated. “We did lots more work between September 2 and 5,” Mrs Llodra said.