Sandy Likely To Cost Ridgefield About The Same As Irene

It’s a matter of compiling the numbers and waiting for the last invoices to come in, Controller Kevin Redmond said.

All of the overtime costs of the police, fire and highway departments are available, Redmond said, but it must be compiled.

“As far as the contractors, those bills are still coming in. Some of these guys, they’re good at trees but they’re not great at billing,” he said.

In an attempt to keep costs down, Ridgefield used local contractors rather than those authorized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to clean up the town. The town followed FEMA guidelines, such as putting the work out to bid, Redmond said.

The total cost won’t be known until the last tree is cleared, and some tree work is continuing, Redmond said. He had no hard estimate as to what the final price tag might be.

“But we’re getting the sense that it’s going to be similar to Irene as far as the work effort and the amount of outside contractors that we used,” Redmond said. “I would think that for a work effort that Sandy is going to be similar to Irene.”

Out-of-pocket costs for Irene came in at $111,000 for overtime, $152,000 for contractors and $36,000 for materials, for a total of $299,000. The nor'easter over Halloween last year cost the town the most, Redmond said, with out-of-pocket costs totaling about $400,000.

FEMA reimbursed all the costs for those two storms, and Redmond says he expected all the out-of-pocket expenses from Sandy to also be covered.

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