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03/14/2018 12:00 AMThe powerful nor’easter that struck March 7 and 8 posed some challenges for town clean up crews, due to the large amount of wet heavy snow that fell overnight, bringing down trees and power lines, but First Selectman Michael J. Freda said he was pleased with the town’s response.
He said that he realized some were frustrated by power outages in town, but that the heavy, fast snowfall made some outages inevitable. He said town officials worked closely with United Illuminating (UI) crews to expedite the process of power restoration, and to communicate about when that would happen to residents, as best they could.
Two days after the storm, North Haven still had about 58 customers without power of a total of 11,642 UI customers in North Haven, or less than half of a percent of customers served in town. Unofficial reports of snowfall totals put parts of North Haven at 11 to 14 inches of heavy, wet snow.
North Haven fared a bit better, when it came to power outages, than some area towns. Branford experienced 3,726 outages (23 percent of Eversource customers served) and Guilford experienced 6,090 (55 percent of Eversource customers served) the morning after the storm.
The storm led to widespread school and business closings statewide on March 8 and, in some towns, even March 9. At one point, state officials closed state highways on the evening of March 7.
Despite all the weather-related havoc, Freda said he was pleased with the response of the town public works crew.
“It was a very challenging storm, in that it hit later in the afternoon” on March 7, said Freda. “So we had our public works crews out all night long, through the early hours of the morning, and concluded at about 4 a.m.”
He said the goal was to get the roads in good shape for the March 8 morning commute, and to do so while trying not to knock down mailboxes. Due to the kind of snow that fell, that proved to be extremely challenging.
“It was such a heavy snow that, by getting closer to the curb, as the snow would come off the blade, there would be a greater number of mailboxes tumbling down. Our drivers tried to be careful out there,” Freda said.
Freda said power outages were problematic in three specific areas of town, including part of Quinnipiac Avenue, Rimmon Road near Hanson Park, and the west side of Linsley Street, which knocked out power to the North Haven Memorial Library, at the corner of Linsley and Elm streets.
“There were many downed trees all over town, so what we are doing now, is that even today at this hour, there are still some residents without power and we are trying to work with UI to at least get a time frame,” he reported late on March 8. “The crews are out there, but due to the complexity of the situation, restoration takes time. But I certainly understand the frustration of those without power.”
With 13 plows out all night, Freda said the equipment held up just fine and that the trucks had no major problems handling the heavy snow.
Safety Primary Concern
As for the town’s snow budget, there was about $300,000 allocated for this year, and about 60 to 70 percent of that was already spent prior to this storm. This being New England, there’s no telling how many more storms are coming this season.
“I have no estimate right now as to how much we might go over,” he said. “But, as these storms happen, the last thing I’m concerned about is an individual line item in the budget. There are almost 500 line items in the budget. My primary concern is getting the roads plowed, and the safety of our residents.”
When the frequency and intensity of storms in past years sometimes have led to overspending in that particular line item, the town has always been able to balance the budget anyway, he said.
“We always balance our budgets,” he said.
“I think people should know that any time there is a major storm, we have everything logistically set up to go and move quickly from a public works standpoint,” he said. “What we can’t control are the power outages. But what we can do is to continue to work with UI to help our residents at least understand what’s happening in the process of power restoration. They’re frustrated and I can understand that.”
In terms of the actual restoration effort, UI takes the lead, but “we have UI reps assigned to us, who work with our public works, and who give my office updates, and sometimes I have to ask for updates as well.”