City begins storm recovery
Date: 11/8/2011
Nov. 9, 2011By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
SPRINGFIELD — The city was still feeling the effects of the Halloween weekend storm more than a week after the heavy snow snapped tree limbs and plunged the region into darkness.
As other communities sent their children back to school on Monday, Springfield still had to keep schools closed to complete the post-storm clean-up.
On Nov. 4, Mayor Domenic Sarno announced his administration would be meeting with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to discuss federal aid in the ongoing cleanup of the city.
Some Springfield residents didn’t get power back until Sunday.
Sarno said residents could drag tree debris to the tree belt or edge of the street for pickup. Residents who are working with tree removal companies must have those contractors remove the waste, Sarno added.
Executive Director of Parks, Buildings and Recreation Management Patrick Sullivan said it would take city crews “many weeks” to complete the clean-up and noted that bucket trucks would be coming to the city this week to continue the work of removing snapped branches that are still hanging from trees.
Director of Health and Human Services Helen Caulton-Harris urged people to simply throw away food that had been left in refrigerators without power during the week calling it “unfit for human consumption.”
Sarno called the three members of the Massachusetts Army National Guard “heroes” who received commendations during his Nov. 4 briefing for actions they took during last week’s storm that helped save the lives of several city residents.
“The National Guard has been absolutely tremendous,” Sarno said.
The Massachusetts National Guard awarded the Army Commendation medal to Spc. Brandi Rose Germain, Spc. Shannon Swanson and Pvt. First Class Rachel Mingo at a ceremony conducted on Nov. 4 at the conclusion of Sarno’s daily storm briefing.
According to the information released that day, Germain and Swanson helped saved the life of an 89-year-old Springfield woman from hypothermia. The two women helped bring the woman’s — who was only identified as “Loretta” — body temperature from 92 degrees to 94 degrees until paramedics arrived at the scene.
Swanson said she and Germain were helping to clear Barney Lane when they came upon Loretta’s house and did a check to see if everyone was all right.
“I haven’t heard but I hope she is OK,” Swanson said.
Mingo was traveling though Springfield when she came across a two-vehicle accident. She treated two of the people for non-life threatening head injuries until paramedics arrived.
Mingo said, “It made me feel great. I love helping here.”
She added, “I was just doing my job.”
Criticism of the recovery performance of Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECo) continued at the Nov. 4 briefing as Sarno noted the absence of the WMECo representative at the start of the meeting.
Sarno said last week that Springfield should have been a priority to WMECo, but a company spokesperson said the utility had to “balance its resources.”
Sandra Ahearn of WMECo told
Reminder Publications that of the 59 communities served by the utility, 44 were “greatly damaged” by the storm.
When this interview took place on the afternoon of Nov. 3, Ahearn said the remaining customers in Springfield would have power by Nov. 5.
Ahearn described the repairs as not “restoration, but re-building.”
Despite progress made on the restoration of electricity to Springfield, Sarno made a formal request to Attorney General Martha Coakley to investigate why WMECo apparently saved Springfield for last.
Longmeadow, Southwick and West Springfield were also waiting for the restoration of power at this writing.
At a press conference on Nov. 1, Sarno, who was without power at his home, expressed frustration with WMECo’s performance. He said with a high density of population and a city with many senior citizens, Springfield should have had a response that was more than “limited sightings” of repair crews.
Ahearn said WMECo and the mayor’s office have had daily conversations. WMECo also maintained daily communication with the municipal governments of all of the affected towns.
On Nov. 2, Sarno wrote to Coakley: “I am writing to request the assistance of your office with regard to Springfield’s frustration with the performance of Western Massachusetts Electric Company during the current declared state of emergency in response to the effects of the severe winter storm.
“I am requesting that the Office of the Attorney General utilize its oversight authority relative to electric utilities to assure that WMECo deploys sufficient resources for the restoration of power to the residents of Springfield, whose residents are in dire straits with prolonged outage.
“In addition, I would request that your office review WMECo’s communications with Springfield customers as to their estimated times of power restoration.
“Springfield’s residents and businesses face the largest risk in the region, and the restoration process must be expedited during the current event and assurances must be provided that resources are available for future events this winter.”
Fifty-two percent of the WMECo customers in the city — more than 37,000 accounts — were without electricity, Sarno said.
Ahearn said, “We have had a lot of boots on the ground from day one.”
She explained that on the first day of a storm, the company responds to cutting tree limbs that have brought down lines, respond to 911 emergency calls and assess the damage.
The protocol is then to bring power back to the stations, then the main lines and finally to the side streets and neighborhoods.
“A lot of the early work that was done is not visible,” Ahearn added.
She said the company understands the inconvenience.
“This was an equal opportunity storm,” she said. “It spared no one in the Pioneer Valley.”
A restoration crew brought in from Florida told Ahearn the kind of damage they are seeing here is similar to that they have seen after a devastating hurricane.
“They couldn’t believe it,” she said.
Sarno questioned if the company was properly staffed for such emergencies and said there is a real difference between how the company responded to the tornado on June 1 and the snowstorm on Oct. 29.
“This is unacceptable,” Sarno said.
