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FAIRFIELD, Conn. One year ago today, the Fairfield Beach area was underwater and large sections of town were without power. But a year after Hurricane Irene hit Fairfield, the town is better prepared to handle a similar event, Deputy Emergency Management Director Art Reid said.
We think we did a fairly good job of managing that storm in the community, said Reid, who is also deputy fire chief. But after any big event like that, theres always things you can improve on.
For example, earlier this summer Fairfield instituted a new emergency notification system, CodeRED, that Reid said should get information out more quickly than the old Reverse 911 system. The town also plans to make a similar change to its website this fall.
Emergency management teams also did additional training with the Medical Reserve Corps and Community Emergency Response Team to better prepare to set up emergency shelters. Fairfields shelter during Irene housed more people and animals than any in Fairfield County other than Bridgeports.
Thousands of households across Fairfield County were left without power last year by Hurricane Irene and the October snowstorm. Some sections of Fairfield were without power for a full week after Irene. Government agencies and utility companies have spent the past year focusing on how to reduce outages if another big storm hit.
The majority of outages during the two storms were caused by downed trees, said Mitch Gross, spokesman for Connecticut Light & Power. As a result, the utility that provides power to most of the state has spent about $100 million this year trimming trees.
We continue to be diligent about pruning trees as needed," Gross said.
More than 809,000 customers lost power after the October storm, and Irene knocked out power to more than 700,000. Reports found that the worst-case scenario CL&P had planned for was 100,000 outages.
Connecticut and its utility companies have also established make-safe crews that will go in before restoration crews to make sure roads are cleared of trees and live wires, said Scott DeVico, of the state's Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection.
These crews should help speed power restoration in areas hit by storms, he added.
Both CL&P and Fairfields electrical utility, United Illuminating, have also been working to improve communication during crises. UI held drills this summer with emergency responders in Trumbull, Fairfield and other towns for practice.
We want to help them create a thorough understanding of safety and response techniques by helping to increase awareness of how our electric system works, UI Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Anthony Vallillo said in a statement.
More than 165 municipalities across Connecticut took part in a four-day statewide emergency preparedness drill at the end of July. Our initial results show that some of the new plans and communications procedures have been implemented successfully," DeVico said.
Emergency preparedness is an ongoing process, Gross and DeVico said.
We dont start preparing once the storm hits, DeVico said. Were preparing all year round.
Reid and the rest of Fairfields emergency management crew ran through the statewide drill from their command center in the Fairfield Police Department. He said he was happy with how the towns crews handled the rushed environment of the exercise, which crammed days worth of crises into several hours.
We didnt come up with too many major issues that we didnt have answers for, Reid said. We were pretty well-prepared for [the drill].
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