Monday, February 11, 2013

Good Afternoon ...

From Mayor Dan Drew at 3:41PM.
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Good Afternoon,

We continue to make progress and have requested assistance from the State of Connecticut.

At this time, the vast majority of our streets are “passable,” but some secondary and tertiary streets have not yet been plowed and we are getting crews to those as quickly as we can.

By passable we mean that a vehicle can get down the street if need be, but “passable” does not mean the road is entirely clear or easy to traverse.



Dead ends and cul-de-sacs are taking a very long time to clear and crews are working on those areas today. There are a small number of streets city-wide that have not yet been made passable and our crews are working to get to them as quickly as possible.

When every road is passable we will focus on the process of widening streets so they have at least two clear lanes of traffic. That process will take several days as we remove snow.

We have been following our emergency operations plan since Friday, and we continue to make progress. To put it in perspective, we received an entire winter’s worth of snow between Friday and Saturday mornings.

We have heard from many people on residential streets that they have not seen a plow truck since Friday evening. The reason is that our first priorities were clearing main roads, the hospital, our fire departments, and police station while simultaneously ensuring that police, medical, and firepersonnel could reach 911 callers.

Fire trucks and ambulances were getting stuck in major snowdrifts during and after the storm. Our Public Works Department has been escorting police vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances to 911 calls since the onset of the storm. They have also cleared paths for CL&P crews to the 350 power outages the city experienced.

We have also brought in additional contractors since the start of the storm to assist the Public Works Department. It will take the better part of a week to clear the streets entirely.

Our cleanup is also being slowed by the freezing rain that is falling now and making the snow heavier.

We remind residents to shovel their roofs and clear decks if possible to prevent collapses.

We are imploring you to stay off the streets. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic is slowing the City’s cleanup and with the onset of rain it will become even more difficult.

I thank you all for your patience and understanding as we continue to clear out from this massive and historic snowstorm.

This is a challenging time for us but we are working hard and we will get through it together.

Thank you.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This guy is making the last mayor look good and that's a hard thing to do!

Middletown Eye (Ed McKeon) said...

Pearl Street is still impassable.

Anonymous said...

Our street is one car now only due in part that a man and two tenns cleaned it.They worked hard for three days cleaning the snow.
The man on the top part of the street is mad because a snow drift is high and he refused to work has a team to get out is still snowed in.
Please work has a team to help each other.One of the teens cleaned up the fire hyrden so the firemen could use it if need be.
And the man complained.Why?Who knows all I know is this teen was thinking saftey!

Anonymous said...

Last I heard from family in the area, The Farms is barely passable if that, and most of that was done by the residents themselves. A plow came by, drove around and did little to nothing. That is unacceptable.

Mike Maier said...

Gotta say that people need to be patient with this; talk to someone that plows regularly and ask them how this compares to 'normal' storms. there was no way to quickly clear away so much snow falling in such a short period. This is a situation of historic proportions- very much an outlier.

Paul Bourque said...

Ok. We got THREE FEET of snow in one storm. The public works department have been working tirelessly to remove a season's worth of snow. Their trucks were getting stuck while removing all this snow. This isnt going to be cleaned up overnight!

Remember the blizzard of 78? The state was shut down FOR A WEEK. We need to be patient, I know it stinks to be stranded but its going to take a while. Stop whining and pointing fingers at the city or the mayor.

After Irene and the October snowstorm all everyone did was point fingers at the utilities. These kind of events tske time and a lot of work and time to clean up safely. It cannot be done overnight.

Anonymous said...

People pointed fingers at the utilities because they promised something they couldn't deliver and gave the public false expectations. That is the same thing that Mayor Drew did. The buck needs to stop with him.