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October 29/30 Snowstorm OBS thread


ChrisM

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Funny CLP never mentioned Tolland until about 2 days ago...Suddenly..it was 2 main areas..Simsbury,WH, Avon..etc...and the Tolland area

We heard Tolland a lot for them actually. Problem is they just didn't send enough crews.

Was in Bloomfield yesterday and the mayor said even on Wednesday they only had 1 crew in town... 5 days after they lost power.

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I thought I'd never see anything as bad as Dec 08 in the hilltowns. On the whole I still think that was worse. But the ice weight bowed the tree over and there weren't as many of these massive limb fractures.

It was amazing how the damage in this storm varied.

For example in the hills it wasn't nearly as bad as in the valleys and urban areas. Sort of opposite the ice storm. There were some neighborhoods in suburban Hartford that saw incredible damage. One house in Avon on about an acre lot had 18 trees either snapped in half or uprooted.

What blew my mind was pine trees that were uprooted or snapped... that's not supposed to happen for snow!

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LOL they're still making up days from last January.

But think about it...you lose all these breaks now, thanks to the ineptness of the power company. I'm sure families made plans and some will still go on vacation..but that's a lot of work to miss. There are so many indirect issues that resulted from this and Irene.

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But think about it...you lose all these breaks now, thanks to the ineptness of the power company. I'm sure families made plans and some will still go on vacation..but that's a lot of work to miss. There are so many indirect issues that resulted from this and Irene.

For sure. At least in West Hartford schools are still closed now not because of power but because they can't get the sidewalks and still dangling trees down.

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I was in Ellington, Venon, Tolland yesterday. Very impressive damage in some areas, lower els really got smoked. I surmise the leaf load was greater. Funny story, as we are driving back from Cindy's dads we are on 74 near Tolland, it was a beautiful warm day, we hit this spot where a hill blocks the sun, there was a significant amount of snow on the hillside, Cindy says wow it's cold here, I said Tolland is a magical place. She just gave me one of those looks like I was crazy. I made her drive so I could see everything, had her take me to her hometown in Vernon by Henry Park where they were dumping brush. She took me on a bunch of back streets that were just tore up. I know people had already cleaned up a lot but the woods where I was looking from a high vantage point had the look of a tree top tornado shearing. Talked to one guy who said he had made ten trips with a dump truck and was only halfway through cleaning. He still did not have power.

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I was in Ellington, Venon, Tolland yesterday. Very impressive damage in some areas, lower els really got smoked. I surmise the leaf load was greater. Funny story, as we are driving back from Cindy's dads we are on 74 near Tolland, it was a beautiful warm day, we hit this spot where a hill blocks the sun, there was a significant amount of snow on the hillside, Cindy says wow it's cold here, I said Tolland is a magical place. She just gave me one of those looks like I was crazy. I made her drive so I could see everything, had her take me to her hometown in Vernon by Henry Park where they were dumping brush. She took me on a bunch of back streets that were just tore up. I know people had already cleaned up a lot but the woods where I was looking from a high vantage point had the look of a tree top tornado shearing. Talked to one guy who said he had made ten trips with a dump truck and was only halfway through cleaning. He still did not have power.

Yeah I think leaf load and fluffier snow is the difference.

If you think Ellington, Vernon, or Tolland is bad head to Farmington, Avon, and Simsbury.

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For sure. At least in West Hartford schools are still closed now not because of power but because they can't get the sidewalks and still dangling trees down.

Speaking from a facility engineers point of view this is a pure nightmare. Folks do not realize how damaging these spikes and voltage surges are to equipment. Major electrical coil damage, pumps burning up and on and on. We suffered over 50 k in damage from Irene at work. Our water features are still down as we await electrical spare parts ( which are short country wide) The impacts are not just power on or off. CLP has more issues than just that. Lots of legal stuff going on, single phasing buildings for hours is malfeasance and incompetent.

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One of the problems here is that the worst of the storm was in highly populated towns and suburbs... we're not talking about the country here...

So is that the difference between say CT and MA? I'm really curious why there is such a stark contrast between restoration, and I haven't heard anyone ask CL&P directly about that.

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So is that the difference between say CT and MA? I'm really curious why there is such a stark contrast between restoration, and I haven't heard anyone ask CL&P directly about that.

I do think the damage was overall worse here... and it was clear and CL&P admitted in the beginning they had a difficult time getting mutual aid crews in here. The reasons for that are unclear.

Also unclear is whether or not the company was able to handle/dispatch/organize the number of tree and line crews that did show up.... mayors/first selectmen have been going on about this since last week.

Most town leaders I've spoken to have mentioned disorganization and ineptitude as the major reasons for delays once the crews got in... things that CL&P denies.

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Really sucks for the kids. They'll be 2 years back if this keeps up.

They'll have to consider Saturday's if it keeps up...although sometimes even in a snowy winter, they luck out due to the timing of the storm-(ie, starts at 4pm so other than a delay they don't lose a day, or storm hits on a weekend/holiday etc) Going to be interesting to see how the time is made up or whether the state makes an exception this year for the 180 day rule or lets schools go past the 6/30 deadline....even down here, we've had 3 days already b/w Irene and this. That's often our total for the whole winter...

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Swung by to take a look at the 400+ year old Granby Oak tree. What a disaster! The monster sized lower limbs were trashed. One that goes up over the road is still up but has a huge split, doomed. It was still fully leafed out and 18+ inches of snow was just too much, will never look the same.

How sad. The area from Granby into Simsbury is just totally roughed up.

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All of N Ct is

Yeah for sure. That area of the Farmington Valley is definitely the worst in the state and probably the region. They were able to get into the big band and just pour paste out of it. In the valleys especially they were getting sick mesoscale banding for a period of time at 32/33/34.

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Yeah for sure. That area of the Farmington Valley is definitely the worst in the state and probably the region. They were able to get into the big band and just pour paste out of it. In the valleys especially they were getting sick mesoscale banding for a period of time at 32/33/34.

Jen's parent s house is built on an old apple orchard..they have (had) 4 huge apple trees in the front yard that are over 200 yrs old. 3 of them were totally destroyed with not a branch left..and one has 3 or 4 large limbs remaining. these things were beautiful, huge trees

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Jen's parent s house is built on an old apple orchard..they have (had) 4 huge apple trees in the front yard that are over 200 yrs old. 3 of them were totally destroyed with not a branch left..and one has 3 or 4 large limbs remaining. these things were beautiful, huge trees

What town are they in? Vernon?

The amazing thing for me was some of the trees just totally split down the middle by the weight of the snow.

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What town are they in? Vernon?

The amazing thing for me was some of the trees just totally split down the middle by the weight of the snow.

Even up in NH...there was a clear difference between an area of bare trees and the areas that had oaks that still had leaves on them. The leafed out trees were damaged, while the areas that had bare trees weren't damaged too much other than a limb here or there down. I know even down there, some trees that were bare took a beating, but pretty clear that is was the leafed out trees that got destroyed.

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