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The nor’easter: 1 year later The nor’easter: 1 year later
By Frank MacEachernStaff Writer
The most striking im-ages for many residents of the fierce storm that raged through town last March is of the untold numbers of trees that toppled over.
A drive through Green-wich — when roadways could be navigated in the days following the storm — was to look upon an almost battle-scarred landscape. Massive trees that appeared to be sym-bols of sturdiness were lying on the ground or suspended in mid-air, held back from a thun-derous landing only by power lines.
It’s an image that re-mains in the memory of Bruce Spaman, the town’s superintendent of parks and trees.
“It was a remarkable storm; we haven’t seen anything like that in a long time,” he said.
It was almost a perfect storm, he said, as mild weather and recent rain re-sulted in the ground loos-ening its hold on trees.
Many trees with rela-tively shallow roots like pine trees could easily be ripped out of the ground by the wind’s strength. In addition, evergreen trees, which do not shed leaves in the fall, caught more of the wind, making it easier for them to be pulled out of the wet ground, he said.
Town crews went to work immediately, clearing trees that blocked major arteries through town. The first priority was clear-ing the major north-south routes such as Lake Av-enue that connect the Mer-ritt Parkway to Route 1.
On Lake Avenue alone, 106 trees had to be cleared from or near the roadway. That stretch of road ac-counted for more than 15 percent of the trees that had to be cleared from town roadways and right-of-ways, Spaman said. In all, the town cleared 644 trees, of which 34 percent were town trees. The re-mainder were private trees that fell on town property or roadways.
So heavily wooded is Greenwich that a definitive total for trees that fell on public and private land will never be known.
White pines accounted for about 30 percent of the fallen trees, Spaman said. The second-hardest hit was Norway spruce at 16 percent, with Norway ma-ple and white ash tied at 9 percent. Sugar maple fol-
lowed at 7 percent, while red maples accounted for 6 percent of the damage. The remainder was from a variety of species, he said.
The town hadn’t suf-fered such widespread damage to trees since January 2006, when back-to-back January storms resulted in the town re-sponding to a total of about 525 incidents, Spa-man said. That number includes cases in which trees or large branches fell on town property or posed a risk to the public, even if they hadn’t fallen, he said.
Those 2006 storms kickstarted the depart-ment to develop a program to identify problem trees, Spaman said. His depart-ment began an inventory of trees that appeared to be in poor condition and a posed a threat of falling.
More than 400 trees are on that list, Spaman said. Though the town has been regularly cutting trees on the list, it con-tinuously finds new ones, and at times a storm will badly damage a formerly healthy tree. The town will look to launch a four-year, $1.7 million program to care for trees along ma-jor roadways in town.
The efforts have re-ceived approval from two organizations that are oc-casionally on the opposite sides of tree cutting.
JoAnn Messina, execu-tive director of the Green-wich Tree Conservancy, said the group supports the town’s efforts.
“We don’t think that it should be trees at any cost,” Messina said. “The town has been very con-servative.”
The conservancy has been doing its part to get a little more green back into Greenwich, recently com-pleting the planting of 370 trees on public lands. Its next initiative will focus on planting and caring for trees along major roads, starting with Hamilton, Sound Beach and Lake av-enues.
Mitch Gross, a spokes-man for Connecticut Light & Power, whose tree-trim-ming practices the conser-vancy casts a wary eye on, said the utility backs what the town is doing.
“Whatever can be done to improve reliability is certainly beneficial,” he said.
Spaman cautions that there is no foolproof meth-od in preventing tree col-lapse.
“There is a risk inherent in trees whether they have defects or not,” he said.
trEES
Town works to repair landscape
By Lisa ChamoffStaff Writer
Technology has helped some teachers expand the boundaries of their classrooms, but when public schools lose instruction time to bad weather, it’s still mainly a numbers game.
With schools closed for a week last year af-ter the March nor’easter, which knocked out pow-er and rendered school bus routes impassable, officials had to push the last day of classes, as well as graduation, back five days to comply with the state’s minimum 180-day school year.
A year later, Superin-tendent of Schools Sid-ney Freund said some lessons were learned, and taken into account when he put together the calendar for the 2010-11 school year.
Freund said he tried to end classes as early in June as possible. In-stead of having off the day before Election Day last November, students came to school, and a professional develop-ment day for teachers was moved to Veter-ans Day, when students didn’t have class.
Freund said he was also careful in call-ing snow days, and de-spite the snowy winter, Greenwich only had four this year, far less than some other Con-necticut towns. The last day for Greenwich Pub-lic Schools will be June 22 — a full week earlier than last year.
Many private schools, such as Convent of the Sacred Heart, have con-tingency plans that in-clude online instruction in the event of school shutdowns. State stat-utes don’t allow public schools that same lux-ury.
“I can have students work online, but that doesn’t help me in meet-ing my 180 days of at-tendance,” Freund said. “We’re not there yet.”
Online learning does happen to some degree, however, so not all stu-dents are left in the dark when classes are can-celed.
Fran Kompar, the dis-trict’s library and media
coordinator, said most teachers post homework assignments on their online portals. Others use wikis, or simple web pages that give all users the ability to edit con-tent, and discussion fo-rums, allowing students to answer various ques-tions.
In icy January, some teachers posted test re-view information on-line, so students didn’t miss out on the review sessions they would have had if they were in school.
“It is happening,” Kompar said, “(but) it isn’t happening in a sys-tematic way.”
Officials are hoping that will change, at least a little bit. The district’s new Student Informa-tion System will even-tually include an online “drop box” for home-work that will allow stu-dents to hand in assign-ments online, and allow teachers to provide com-ments digitally.
The district is cur-rently in the third year of a three-year technol-ogy plan that is required by the state. As district officials prepare to re-vise the plan, Kompar said there will certainly be discussion about ex-panding online learning. There are some limita-tions, including students who don’t have access to a computer or the In-ternet.
“The potential is there,” Kompar said. “I don’t know how long it will be.”
Staff Writer Lisa Cham-off can be reached at [email protected] or 203-625-4439.
SChooLS
District learns some valuable lessons from nor’easter
Schools reopen.
March 2010 nor’easter: As it happenedhErE iS A tiMELinE oF thE MArCh 13, 2010, nor’EAStEr And itS AFtErMAth:
2 p.m. Daniel Warzoha, the town’s emergency manage-ment director, monitors the approaching storm and
informs First Selectman Peter Tesei it will be severe. Storm hits around this time.
4 p.m. Town sends reverse-911 message. Green-wich Emergency Services begins receiving calls by the minute.
5:30 p.m. Roof collapses at Whole Foods Market on East Putnam Avenue. Police Officer John Perna trapped
in cruiser as large tree falls onto his windshield.
6 p.m. Connecticut Light & Power pulls crews from repair work due to rising danger.
6:30 p.m. June Einhorn, 61, struck and killed by falling tree in backcountry. She is the town’s single storm-related fatality.
Calls at the police dispatch center skyrocket into the hundreds, leaving dispatchers overwhelmed and scrambling to answer.
1:40 a.m. Tesei declares state of emer-gency. The storm continues throughout the night.
5:30 a.m. Tesei, previ-ously at the Emergency Operations Center at Town Hall, gets his first look at the damage while driving to his Cos Cob home.
CL&P reports 66 percent of Greenwich’s 27,955 customers without power Sunday evening.
Schools close indefinitely.
Commuters arrive to find Horseneck commuter lot barred to them in order to station utility trucks. Some commuters move barricades in order to get in. Police are called to calm the situation.
Twenty-five new power crews from Ohio that arrived late Sunday join the 25 CL&P crews in the cleanup.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell visits town and speaks to town officials, promises help.
CL&P tells town offi-cials 99.9 percent of Greenwich will get power back by Thursday night.
About 14,000 CL&P customers are without power Monday evening.
Town officials criticize CL&P over its response. CL&P chief says the utility responded appropriately. Forty-eight roads are still closed due to downed trees and power lines.
CL&P has 70 crews working in town and maintains power-restoration prediction.
About 700 trees are estimated to have fallen, and CL&P says about 50 snapped utility poles need to be replaced.
13,905 Greenwich customers without power at 9 p.m.
35 percent, or 9,000 customers, remain without power. CL&P now has 111 crews working in town. The utility again predicts that 99.9 percent of customers will have power restored by Thursday evening.
Greenwich Public Schools Superintendent Sidney Freund announces that schools will be closed for the week.
6,830 customers without power at 8 p.m.
CL&P reports 16 percent, or slightly less than 5,000, homes and businesses remain without power.
CL&P adds another 10 crews to join the 113 working in town as it expects to complete rebuilding the backbone of its electrical system by the end of the day. CL&P projects power outage total will fall below 1,000 by that time.
CL&P says about 125 utility poles were destroyed. Ninety-five replaced as of Thursday.
More than 4,000 customers are still without power as night falls.
SAtUrdAY, MArCh 13 SUndAY, MArCh 14 MondAY, MArCh 15 tUESdAY, MArCh 16 WEdnESdAY, MArCh 17 thUrSdAY, MArCh 18
CL&P admits it missed power-resto-ration target. About 1,500 outages at the start of the day. That total rises to about 3,700 by noon, but gradu-ally dimin-ishes to 1,535 by 9 p.m.
FridAY, MArCh 19
All but 125 customers have power restored as of Saturday morning. The number drops to 22 by 9 p.m.
SUndAY, MArCh 21
Tesei lifts state of emergency. Handful of Greenwich residents still without power.
SAtUrdAY, MArCh 20
MondAY, MArCh 22
timothy guzda/staff graphic
Then and nowGreenwich was a battlefield in March 2010, pockmarked by torn-up turf, sidewalks, trees, houses and all manner of debris. Here are some of the images we captured of the devastation, accompanied by photos of what the locations look like today:
thEn
Havemeyer Lane
noW
Sound Beach AvenuethEn noW
“As the late afternoon progressed it really became harrowing. I could not believe what was happening.”
Gary Silberberg, Dingletown Road resident, on helping stranded drivers on the road during the storm
East Putnam Avenue
thEn noW
“I saw a Porta-Potty go flying by. I thought to myself, ‘Holy smokes.’ ”State Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-36th District, on the scene at Greenwich High School during the March 13, 2010, nor’easter
Mason Street East Putnam Avenue
thEn noW thEn noW
then photos by helen neafsey/staff photographer; now photos by bob luckey/staff photographer
The district’s new Student Information System will eventually include an online “drop box” for homework that will allow students to hand in assignments online, and allow teachers to provide comments digitally.
A10 | Greenwich Time | Sunday, March 13, 2011 Sunday, March 13, 2011 | Greenwich Time | A11
