Danbury Picks Up First Load of Storm Wood

Overseers with SAIC.com checked in a load of brush, the first of what will be thousands of dump truck loads, Monday morning to begin clean-up of storm damage from the Oct. 29 snowstorm.

The truck teams made up of one dump truck and one grapple truck headed to four Danbury neighborhoods for the first day of work. They went to Shelter Rock, to 40 Acre Mountain Road, to Long Ridge Road and to Pond Crest. The Pond Crest crew, which worked near Danbury High School, returned first before 10 a.m.

Ryan Goodsell of New Milford drove the first truck, and he said he got out on Pond Crest and picked up a few branches the grapple truck missed. The overseers credited him with dropping off a load full to 85 percent capacity.

Each truck is measured by hand before it starts work, and its identification and capacity is noted on the side of the truck. The overseers credited Goodsell with dropping off a load full to 85 percent capacity.

"Everything is monitored. They'll do this for every single load that comes in," said Tom Hughes, superintendent of public works.

The grabble truck reaches out its grabble arm and picks up a pile of wood on the side of the road, which it drops into the dump truck working with it. That leaves a few stray branches on the ground.

"I'll repile it for them," Goodsell said. "We don't want to leave anything behind."

The brush and logs delivered to Kennedy Place will be chipped and hauled away.

The job is being done by a national disaster recover firm Ashbritt, which hired SAIC.com as the overseer representing the federal Emergency Management Administration's interests.

Jim Goble of Dorado Services, was subcontracted by Ashbritt to manage the Danbury operation. Earlier this month, he was working on the same job in New Milford and in Vernon.

The overseer is important for several reasons, said Hughes. The overseer makes sure FEMA is getting its money worth. When FEMA gets its money's worth, Danbury will be reimbursed for the cost of cleaning up this wood.

Goble said in Alabama, a trucker created a secret lift for a false bottom in his dump truck which he kept on high during a similar FEMA job. That allowed the trucker to charge for a full load, when it was really only half full. An overseer caught him.

"He got caught and went to prison. Stealing from FEMA is a federal offense," Goble said.

Goble said he expects what will happen in Danbury is the four teams will be expanded later in the week, and they will work their way into town from its four corners. He said once they finish one sweep, they'll probably take another sweep.

"It will take probably three weeks," Goble said. "People will realize what happened, and once their first pile is taken care of, they'll put out a second."