How was your visit from Irene?

New London, along Pequot avenue



This is what my road looked like except the branches were smaller



New London at Ferry Docks (Photos from the Day paper)

Luckily before it arrived it was down-sized to a class 1 then a tropical storm. Still it did enough damage with the winds it did bring.

Not to happy with the power company. I awoke early on Sunday and started watching SPEED TV the GP2 race before the F1 race, with the storm barely upon us the power went out, 6:55am,  and haven't seen it since. I was ready for the storm, three sump pumps, (useless by the way without power), two wheel barrows outside to collect water,(have a well,no power, no water), built a wooded water buffer for the basement door, had plenty of candles and flashlights. Luckily the rain didn't amount to much so no flooding at the house. Halfway through the day I remembered I have a Laptop so we watched a couple movies on battery power before that crapped out.

At around 5pm with the storm pretty much over I went out on a quest for cigarettes. I was going to take the bike but one look at the roads covered in pine needles, wet leaves and branches meant I would take the car. I passed Town of Groton plow-trucks working using the snow plows to clear roads. Mystic was boarded and sand-bagged without power, but Mystic Pizza had the doors open and music blasting out into the street. People were walking in for light and food. (Generators were generating money). The Stonington side of the river found trees blocking roads and broken telephone poles. Pizza would have been good but my quest was for cigarettes and the Pizza house doesn't sell them. Everywhere was storm clutter on the roads, dark traffic signals and dark houses. Running up route 27 I arrived at I-95, a oasis in a sea of storm debris. There was nothing on the roads, not a leaf, the street lights worked, gas stations were open and so was The Equinox. I bought smokes, drove past 95, drove past Jerry Brown road, and I was back in storm clutter, Old Mystic there was power, at 27 and 184 that ended and I was back in the dark ages.

How many years has the CL&P dealt with storms and why do they continue to operate with an antiquated system of hanging wires in trees? New housing areas are built with power underground, It still amazes me that CL&P hasn't begun burying the wires. Start small, do a main corridor, then another, and another. They don't have to do it all at once. For instance run the wires under ground along route 32, the following year or two do route 163, with the main roads handled it would mean damage would be confined to side roads, which would decrease the damage area, leaving the main feeders on line. Slowly year by year they could do more till all the main arteries are done.

To continue to hang the wires in the air, and as of late stop pruning the branches around them, then make the comment that there was more damaged than anticipated is a monument to stupidity. What would the damage have been if this had stayed a hurricane?  At what point is the provider responsible to its consumers? No crews out till after the storm, fine, I understand keeping your people safe, but the storm was over on Sunday, and the crews went out when? I for one have yet to see a truck or crew out working. I can say people are not happy, at the restaurant last night CL&P was the main topic of discussion. One question was brought up and talked about,  If you have taken precautions and bought flood control equipment, and you "contract" with a company to supply the power, and flooding does occur, if houses are damaged because the provider fails to have underground wires, and fails to keep the trees trimmed around their wires, can they be held partially responsible for damages. One of the people at the diner was a lawyer and he said, "That is damn good question, a Fire department was sued in New York state because they did not own 5" hose, and that because it was available to them they were held responsible for not saving a building when it burned". He also said that not cutting hazards away from the wires is like a railroad not doing track maintenance and having a derailment."

Anyway, Glad the storm fizzled out, it could have been a lot worse for everyone. Hope you made out well where-ever you are and the damage was minimal or none.

klay