East Haddam Continues Preparations for Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene continues to take aim at the State of Connecticut and is still forecasted to affect us beginning early Saturday evening with rain and continue into Sunday with heavy rain and damaging winds.  With the Storm still over 36 hours away, there remains the chance for a shift in the projected path. With that said, the majority of the forecasting models continue to agree that Connecticut will have significant and damaging effects from this storm.

The Governor officially declared a state of emergency for Connecticut early Thursday evening. Additionally, a website has been created to provide updated information on Irene. 

On Thursday night a meeting was held by key East Haddam Personnel reviewing preparations to date. This meeting involved Emergency Management Staff, the Board of Selectman and representatives from Police, Fire, Ambulance, Public Works, East Haddam Schools, EHYFS and the Food bank. The group discussed minimum staffing needs, emergency response, sheltering of residents if required and created a list of outstanding issues needing to be addressed. The group plans to meet again to ensure all outstanding items are completed.

Based on the current projected path East Haddam will be on the east side on the eye of the Hurricane. What does this mean?? It means that East Haddam will receive lower rain totals but higher sustained winds.  Winds are currently projected to be 85 mph with gusts over 100 mph for our area. This will cause widespread downed trees and power lines throughout all areas of Town.

Residents are reminded that they need to treat all downed power lines as if they are live! DO NOT TOUCH ANY POWER LINES UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD BY CT LIGHT AND POWER OR EMERGENCY PERSONNEL THAT IT IS SAFE TO DO SO. 

 Although you can see that the power lines are down and the power is out, don’t think that it is safe to move a downed line. These power lines could become re-energized at any time! Never assume anything when working around power lines. Instead, assume that they are live and that electrocution dangers exist. Even though you may not see them, power lines have a way of becoming entangled in the trees and can become a serious hazard for the person cutting the trees with a chainsaw.  

It is possible that areas of East Haddam could be without power for many days, if not a week or more. In addition to no power residents can expect similar outage times for phone, cable and Internet service.  To provide residents with the ability to receive information or request services, East Haddam Emergency Management will have volunteers available at the East Haddam Senior Center from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. starting Monday morning. The Senior Center in located at 15 Greathill Wood Road in Moodus.

A final update will be posted on the town website sometime Saturday as the storm approaches. Additionally, Saturday afternoon we will be using the Town’s Emergency Notification System to call all residents with a final storm update.  If you have not signed up for East Haddam Alerts, please follow the link on the main page of the East Haddam town website.

Should you have any questions or concerns please call the town hall at 860-873-5020 during business hours or email Ehaddamemgmgt@easthaddam.org.