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Luck Spared Fairfield From Storm's Worst

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The words of Dave Sturges seem eerily prophetic now. The Fairfield resident warned town officials last Tuesday that the same problems that led to widespread and long-lasting power outages during Hurricane Irene could happen again, even with a different precipitation.  

“It’s risky in the summer, and it’s just plain bad in the winter,” Sturges said at last week’s public forum on Irene, referring to weeklong power outages after the August hurricane. “And the same thing can happen in the snow as in rain.”

Just four days later, Connecticut got proof of Sturges’ theory. At the storm’s peak, more residents in the state had lost power than during any other event in history. Yet Fairfield was mostly spared from the storm’s problems.  

As of Tuesday evening, just 26 Fairfield residents were still without electricity, less than 0.1 percent of the town. Many other towns in Connecticut still had the majority of their residents without power, including five towns in Tolland County that were 100 percent in the dark. It will be a full week before the lights come back on in some places.

“I think it was just the makeup of the storm,” Fairfield Tree Warden Ken Placko said when asked why Fairfield recovered more quickly from this storm than Irene. “It was a little surprising to have that early of a snowfall in Connecticut, that could damage that many trees. But by and large, branches broke off trees, whereas with Irene trees actually gave way.”

About two-dozen trees in town fell during the weekend snowstorm. Another 300 were damaged and need to be evaluated to see whether they must be cut down, Placko estimated. He will drive around Fairfield to see what trees need work, but residents who spot a tree in a dangerous condition should call Placko’s office at 203-256-3178.

Michael West, United Illuminating’s communications director, said that from his company’s perspective the storm was far from mild. More than 45,000 customers lost power in the 17 towns covered by the utility. The company restored power to more than 99 percent of its customers within three days because it worked more closely with individual towns from the start this time, he said.

“Every storm is different. So you only can determine what the approach will be, and the magnitude of it once it hits,” West said.  “We’re prepared for any storm that comes.”

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