Manchester Officials Sound Off on Storm Response

A contingent of Manchester officials had the opportunity to explain to the governor’s Two Storm Panel why the town than many of the surrounding communities.

They said it was due largely to the strong working relationship that town personnel had already established with Connecticut Light & Power liaisons prior to the freak October snowstorm and August’s Tropical Storm Irene, both of which resulted in massive power outages throughout the state. This enabled Manchester to map and identify areas of urgent need and work with CL&P personnel and the outside contractors they imported during the storm to get power restored throughout town in an efficient manner.

“The value that we had in Manchester was that the (CL&P) operations team were the same people that worked storm Irene, but it was also the same people that worked in Manchester throughout the years on various other power upgrades,” Public Works Director Mark Carlino told the Two Storm Panel. “I can’t underscore the importance that we were lucky enough to have that team assigned to Manchester.”

The Two Storm Panel is an eight-member group appointed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and charged with reviewing the preparedness and response by the state, local municipalities and utilities during Tropical Storm Irene and the October Nor’easter, and then presenting a series of recommendations to Malloy . Wednesday’s meeting at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford was the eighth such meeting of the group.

Manchester officials who addressed the panel included Carlino, State Sen. Steve Cassano, a Democrat who represents Manchester and several of the surrounding communities, Fire Chief Robert Bycholski, and Eileen Faust, the director of the Manchester Senior Center who also served as the director of the town’s emergency shelter after the storm. General Manager Scott Shanley attended the meeting but did not address the panel.

Carlino said within 24 hours of the storm Manchester had compiled an extensive series of maps that showed areas of town where roads were blocked or closed due to downed trees or wires, as well as maps that showed areas that were just impacted by trees, and those that involved wires that would require a CL&P crew to assist with. He said that having that level of detail allowed both the town and the utility to be able to prioritize areas of focus. For example, Carlino noted, areas that were only blocked by trees could be addressed without having to wait for a CL&P crew to assist.

“Those were things that are public works staff would be able to go out and address themselves because they did not involved wires,” he said.

Carlino said that Manchester was also fortunate to have both a line and tree crew from CL&P assigned to the Public Works Department, and that those crews would travel with town personnel throughout town to address specific areas of concern.

Bycholski said that the maps were also critical to the town’s public safety response in the week or so that some parts of town remained without power, noting three situations during that time that fire personnel were alerted to closed roads in advance during emergency situations because of the maps.

“That was invaluable to public safety,” Bycholski said. “The maps that were provided to us right from day one and throughout the storm helped us to respond.”

But the Manchester officials also identified areas where they felt improvement was still needed, particularly communication between CL&P and municipalities and a reinvestment in the utilities infrastructure. Carlino noted that some of the only areas of town that never lost power as a result of the storm were those that had seen recent utility upgrades and stronger grades of wiring and connections installed.

Cassano recommended that both the state and local municipalities establish better partnerships with their utilities, place greater emphasis and training to be prepared for such disasters, and take a serious look at the tree situation throughout the state and local municipalities ability to accommodate residents who may have disabilities or medical conditions during prolonged power outages.

immediately after the storm, but the town was one of the few in the hardest hit area of north central Connecticut that CL&P was able to hit its initial 99 percent restoration deadline by midnight Sunday.

Not all nearby municipalities had similar stories to share with the commission Wednesday. Aaron Nash, who coordinates graphic information systems for the town of Vernon, said that Vernon had compiled detailed maps of the damage throughout town, but when they requested corroborating information from CL&P they were often met with long delays or flat out refusal.

“We had residents that had to drive across other residents lawns because of wires and trees down,” Nash told the panel. “Some elderly and disabled residents were stuck in their homes for more than one day.”

When asked, Carlino attributed Manchester’s quicker restoration response to the town’s ability and familiarity working with the CL&P officials who were assigned to restoration efforts in town after the storm. 

“I think a lot of it comes down to the past relationships we had with the individuals assigned to Manchester,” he said.