Politics & Government
PHOTOS: The Long Road(s) to Recovery After the Storms
The Haddams continue in the quest for storm clean-up and repair work after two major storms devastate the area.
It's been a few weeks now and just about all of us in East Haddam and Haddam are 'back on line' with our electricity and trying to get our lives back to normal. But, the effects from storms Irene and Alfred are still omnipresent and continue to present challenges for all of us here in the Haddams, especially our road-crews, electricians, line-men and tree clean-up crews.
The recent Autumn nor-easter ('Alfred') with snow, ice and strong winds thrown into the mix so very early in the season makes some of us wonder if the 'Light at the End of the Tunnel' could be an on-coming train!
In the meantime, work continues and life goes on. Neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends. And although hardship brings people together, there is just no easy way around it.
Area electrical contractor Joshua Becker of 'Moodus Electric' said he's been incredibly busy making repairs to meter equipment and re-strapping service wires to area residences.
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"I've been very busy trying to keep up with the repairs resulting from these last two storms. On the positive side, I've met a lot of new customers, especially people wanting to hook up generators," he said.
Becker has been overwhelmed with requests for installations of transfer switches for portable generators, as well as working to set up permanent stand-by generators for homes, as there is much anticipation of possible future long-term power outages in the event of another serious storm.
According to one of the East Haddam road crew workers, many of the town roads are still in pretty rough shape, with the primary focus at this point being roadside debris. The devastation that the first major storm left behind hadn't even been cleaned up before the second one came in two months later, almost to the day, and made more work on top of the original mess!
East Haddam Public Works Director Elizabeth Lunt describes the clean-up effort as an 'ongoing process', stating that it's difficult to determine what the time-frame will be for completion, and although a lot of progress has been made, it could take many months before everything is brought back to normal.
