Danbury Mayor Declares Local Disaster Emergency

DANBURY, CT — Mayor Mark Boughton has issued a Declaration of Local Disaster Emergency in response to the damage and conditions caused by Tropical Storm Isaias.

The declaration grants municipal leaders special legislative powers to "take such action as necessary to protect public health and mitigate (the) emergency."

Danbury was hit hard by the storm which blew through Connecticut on Tuesday, with a state-high 15,500 outages.

On social media the mayor warned residents that "cell phone service will become spotty as the batteries on the towers drain." Boughton has asked Verizon to make available a temporary tower to be set up at Broadview Middle School.

Boughton also used his weapon of choice to savage Eversource, the utility company whose response was earlier criticized by Gov. Ned Lamont as "wholly inadequate." On Twitter, Boughton called out the CEO of the company for making an eight-figure salary and not being able to "keep the lights on:"

CEO of @EversourceCT makes.. Drum roll please... $19 million dollars a year. What could he possibly do so well for that kind of money?? Clearly he and his team can't keep the lights on, or plan for a storm, or work to keep rates down.. #absurd
— Mayor Mark Boughton (@MayorMark) August 6, 2020

Explaining that phones and internet are even out of commission at the mayor's office, Boughton has been using Twitter to advise residents about essential services during the power outage.

New Street Fire House has a charging station and water for our residents. #Danbury https://t.co/ieHJiG0vQa pic.twitter.com/tCTrGrlAq8
— Mayor Mark Boughton (@MayorMark) August 5, 2020

So far, Eversource has restored power to about 332,000 customers, said Craig Hallstrom, president of Eversource electric operations. There were 450 line crews and 235 tree crews working in the state Wednesday and that number is expected to double by the end of Thursday as the company pulls in more out-of-state workers, he said.