Storm and Power Outage By the Numbers

At the board of selectmen’s meeting Monday there was a regular agenda, but what captured most of the time and attention of those in attendance was information about the storm and power outage.

It was part of First Selectman Mary Glassman’s report, and part of the agenda in that a ‘thank you event’ is being planned for the staff, emergency services personnel and volunteers who helped.

But it was Emergency Management Director Kevin Kowalski who put the storm and its aftermath into perspective with a set of numbers.

There was the first storm-related call that came in at 2:40 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29. From there the floodgates opened. Just that weekend the dispatchers at the Simsbury Police Department received more than 500 calls to 911.

“That doesn’t count routine lines,” said Kowalski, who said those calls numbered in the thousands.

On top of that the town was receiving Avon’s 911 calls as their system was down for 12 hours.

The calls ranged from wires down to car accidents, fires, sparking wires and damage to homes due to the falling trees and limbs. More than 20 structures had damage and there were three major structure fires. In one instance, members of the Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company were unable to get to the home due to debris. The family was at the shelter at the time of the fire.

The fire department responded to more than 100 emergency calls in the first two days of the storm, said Kowalski, who is also the town’s Fire Marshal.

The town’s shelter opened Saturday night at Simsbury High School and during the time it was open 7,423 people came through the doors. The shelter served a total of 5,960 hot meals and 1,220 people slept there.

The Simsbury Volunteer Ambulance Association, police and Farmington Valley Visiting Nurse Association personnel were on hand at various times. It was a full care, mass facility, he said.

At the high school Animal Control Officer Mark Rudewicz oversaw an animal shelter that had dozen of pets come through its doors.

The emergency operations center in town hall held meetings several times a day.

For a period of time the entire town was without power, as were many surrounding towns. Connecticut Light & Power was slow to respond, with one line crew in town, but eventually there were 195 line crews in town helping to restore power.

AT&T and Comcast are still working to restore some individuals and have said that by the end of the month services should be restored.

Kowalski said each firehouse was staffed around the clock for 10 days and the town’s Department of Public Works and the ambulance service were also working around the clock.

At the height of the storm, 38 roads in town were inaccessible. Kowalski said the priority was to makes sure safety personnel had access to all residents in town. That took precedence over restoration until that goal was achieved. Then power was restored according to a predetermined plan.

It started with the town center so residents could have access to gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies. Then it moved to areas that needed the least amount of resources to restore power, as well as health care facilities and those for the elderly.

The town has undergone training and in 2010 conducted Operation Iron Horse as part of a Homeland Security exercise to test the town’s command and control, response, and recovery capabilities resulting from a major disaster.

The term “well-oiled machine” was used several times to describe how the town’s shelter operated and how the town in general responded to the disaster. There will be a debriefing of the event, as there are areas for improvement, such as updating the town’s list of its elderly and residents with more complex problems.

There were plenty of thanks to go around as well, which is why the board is planning a thank you event.

Kowalski and Glassman said they never heard people say “I can’t do that” when asked to help. From neighbors helping neighbors, to town staff pitching in above and beyond their work scope, working long hours, to the Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary, who staffed the shelter kitchen continuously, the community came together.

Kowalski was singled out several times by a board members for his implementation of emergency preparedness plans and his insistence on training for such a disaster.

“It’s not me. It’s the team,” said Kowalski “The team shined.”