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Storm Aftermath-Lights Finally On, Cleanup Continues

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Storm Aftermath—

Lights Finally On, Cleanup Continues

By John Voket

At noon Wednesday, 12 days after the rogue snowstorm dubbed Alfred rolled across Newtown leaving almost the entire community dark and without telecom and cable services, First Selectman Pat Llodra announced the final resident was seeing her electricity being restored.

This development came 12 hours ahead of the CL&P’s latest pledge for 100 percent restoration across the body of its utility customers in Connecticut, and as Newtown State Representative Chris Lyddy formally entered the fray, demanding accountability from the power conglomerate that previously missed local and statewide pledges for restoration by several days.

“CL&P’s ill-prepared response jeopardized the health, welfare, and safety of Newtown’s residents,” said Rep Lyddy. “The response was an epic failure, and it is clear that CL&P abdicated their responsibility to restore power in a timely manner. This not only put undue pressure on our residents, but also stressed town and state resources.”

Rep Lyddy joined Representative DebraLee Hovey in praising local officials for their tireless work to get Newtown back to normal, while pressing for relaxed rules on tree trimming to allow CL&P to work more quickly. Rep Hovey also recognized the “fine people at Newtown’s Department of Public Works for their continued work on behalf of the residents of Newtown.”

For all but two of the twice-daily town emergency management briefings, and during long durations where he worked for hours in the first selectman’s office, Rep Lyddy worked with Mrs Llodra “to ensure that Newtown was well represented and that we put the necessary pressure on CL&P to restore power to our residents. In collaboration with many others, including the Emergency Management Team, Pat coordinated a tremendous response and for that we should all be grateful.”

Rep Lyddy said first and foremost, Connecticut residents deserve an apology from CL&P for what he called an “inexcusable response to this situation.”

Northeast Utilities said November 9 that a $10 million fund would be established to assist residential customers of CL&P who suffered losses in the October snowstorm.

Under the plan, the fund would be given to the governor’s office and most likely would be administered by an outside group, an NU spokesman said. Details of how residential customers can apply for the assistance — and for what expenses — still need to be worked out, NU said. However, spoiled food and tree trimming are possible expenses that could be considered, NU said.

Marie van Luling, vice president, communications at NU, said the Hartford-based utility believes $10 million is “a significant amount of money and sufficient for a good starting base.”

If an average affected household sustained a cost of $500 — for tree removal, property damage, lost food, insurance deductibles, and higher costs related to the outage — the total for residents would be $400 million, according to an Associated Press report.

NU employees and Connecticut residents will be able to contribute to the $10 million fund, potentially building up its size, in a style similar to other disaster relief funds, Ms van Luling said, adding that NU targeted the fund to residential customers because “they have fewer avenues to recover from the storm than businesses do.”

There are no immediate plans for a similar fund for businesses, although a statewide business association Thursday called for that accommodation to be added to the fund.

Hold Off Merger

In view of the response by both state electrical utilities to the storm’s aftermath, Rep Lyddy also called for Northeast Utilities’ proposed merger with a Massachusetts company to “immediately be taken off the table.” He also insisted, and pledged to ensure, both utility companies develop corporate policies that ensure the safety, health, and welfare of people while implementing disincentives for companies that literally leave people in the dark for weeks at a time.

Two other state lawmakers said they will introduce legislation in the 2012 session that would direct the state’s utility authority PURA to create standards of acceptable performance for utility companies with respect to serving customers and power restoration following outages. Failure to meet those standards could result in penalties for the utilities.

House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan (D-Meriden) and State Representative Vickie O. Nardello (D-Bethany, Cheshire, Prospect), House chair of the Energy and Technology Committee, said the utility’s recent performance made it clear that legislation is necessary.

Speaker Donovan and Rep Nardello said that Massachusetts enacted similar legislation in 2009 in the wake of utility response to an ice storm in central Massachusetts. They also pointed out that national standards and benchmarks exist. In 2009, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a law authorizes his state’s utility authority to levy penalties against the utilities if they fail to meet the service quality standards.

Penalties in Massachusetts can be as much as 2.5 percent of the utility’s transmission and distribution service revenues for the previous calendar year.

At the same time, Rep Lyddy continued stressing the importance of emergency preparedness, urging residents to sign up their home phones, e-mail, and cellphones with Newtown’s Emergency Code Red system by visiting the first selectman’s office in person, calling in to 203-270-4201, or on the town’s website, newtown-ct.gov.

“We all learned a lesson or two in the last few months,” said Rep Lyddy. “We all need to prepare for natural disasters and ensure that we communicate our safety plans with our friends and families. One of the greatest factors in getting through these difficult times is most certainly how prepared we are to respond.”

 

Ambulance Crews Pressed

As the extreme volume of calls that pressed the 52 members of the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance corps throughout the storm period began dissipating Wednesday, Ambulance Chief Ken Lerman told The Bee that he and his crews also “learned a lot.”

He said access problems plagued his crews on many calls, especially earlier in the week, but it was the proximity and ease of access that permitted ambulance personnel, a Newtown paramedic, and several Sandy Hook firefighters that contributed to saving an unidentified 52-year-old after that person suffered a cardiac emergency and was rendered unresponsive just after the storm had subsided.

Sandy Hook Chief Bill Halstead said the quick response to the call provided firefighters an opportunity to begin life saving measures by administering CPR, while the paramedic prepared and administered a single defibrillator shock, restoring the individual’s stopped heart and breathing.

Overall, Mr Lerman said, “We did our jobs, but it was a lot less extra work than the firefighters in all of the town’s departments. They were phenomenal.”

Mr Lerman also praised Police Chief Michael Kehoe for immediately providing an impromptu headquarters for the ambulance crews in the basement of the police station when the ambulance headquarters was rendered unusable because of power and telecommunication outages that hit on the evening of October 29.

He said crews walked in and there were cots, and a safe place to park and plug in electrical equipment requiring recharging on the ambulance. He also reminded residents who are medically fragile, and who require medical equipment or supplies like oxygen, to have a prestorm plan in place to acquire an extra inventory.

“We responded to a lot of calls because people were left unprepared, and there was an expectation that we would supply them oxygen,” Mr Lerman said. “Also with the hospital overwhelmed we still were responding to calls from people who expected us to transport them because they were cold.”

He said after arriving to a call for help from one family member, they discovered the subject of that concerned call “sitting very comfortable and warm in front of a fire, asking who we were and what why we were bothering her.”

On Wednesday, the town also posted its intended schedule and mapping of debris pickup routes, which can be viewed at newtownbee.com in the “Source Files” section (in the “miscellaneous” folder). Public Works Director Fred Hurley previously said that if residents can either get storm debris for themselves or help a neighbor transport debris to the town landfill which will be open dawn to dusk through Saturday, November 12.

For those with no means of getting debris to the dump, Mr Hurley requested that all debris be dragged to about five feet from the edge of the road in front of residences.

Health District Director Donna Culbert said all boil water alerts in Newtown had been lifted as of the state health department’s November 9 alert.

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