Storm's Aftermath Dominates Council Meeting

There was plenty of praise aimed at town departments for their efforts during and after Hurricane Irene moved through the area on Aug. 28. There also was concern, or maybe it was anger, over the slowness of the cleanup.

Irene and her aftermath took center stage at the East Hampton Town Council meeting on Tuesday night.

Resident Kimberly Fontaine questioned during public comment why clearing roads and making them passable wasn’t made more of a priority.

“I am appalled to hear there were people on four roads, if I understand this correctly, for four days that had no way to get out,” said Fontaine, who felt that after securing the needs of the police and fire departments, making roads passable for emergency services should have been next on a list of priorities. “What in God’s name would we have done if there was a fire or medical emergency at one of these homes?”

Council chair Melissa Engel agreed, saying, “We are very fortunate that nobody’s house caught on fire. You couldn’t have got the fire trucks down those roads or an ambulance. When you’re going to start an emergency list of what you do first, you can’t leave people without access for that amount of time.”

Public works director Keith Hayden explained, as he did during the town council’s emergency meeting on Aug. 30, that his crews had to wait on removing trees or branches that involved wires.

“We were pretty much following behind CL&P,” Hayden said. “CL&P had to have a line crew and tree crew and the line crew had to certify and ground out the wire and then the tree crew would drop them. … Anytime there were trees on wires, there was no way I could send our crews out to work on those. … We were dependent on CL&P to move those trees that were on the wires, to move those wires out of the way.

“We were willing to do whatever it takes to work with them any way possible and they didn’t take us up on it.”

Fire Chief Paul Owen also was told by CL&P to stay away from downed wires.

“Those roads were number one on all of our lists [of priorities],” Owen said. “We were told by CL&P, because of the high voltage lines going through most of those trees, to don’t even make an attempt. We had a plan, if we had to get in there, and basically take the chance. … As for the fire department, we were prepared to do anything to get in there if we had to.”

The frustration with the cleanup might have been the most discussed, but there were other concerns. Some in attendance pointed to a lack of information from the town in the wake of the storm. Another expressed a need for a generator at the Community Center, which would serve the library and senior center. And the issue of trimming trees, something that CL&P used to do but stopped for budgetary reasons, also was raised.

One thing that became clear during the meeting is a need for another to deal specifically with storm-related issues. That idea had already been pitched by council member Barbara Moore and added to Tuesday night’s agenda.

The plan is for CL&P, the town manager, certain town department heads and other employees to attend. The council also would be represented and the public will be invited to attend.