REGION RIDES OUT THE STORM
Emergency crews reap the benefits of being prepared
New London — There are little things most of us don’t think about when a storm like Thursday’s comes along.
What if the ambulance can’t make it down a side road?
Is there a hydrant nearby that’s covered by snow?
Which restaurants are open so we can feed our prisoners?
But it’s those things and more for which emergency management officials and first responders must prepare.
An hourslong affair, Thursday’s storm dumped about 10 inches of snow across much of southeastern Connecticut, leaving workplaces and schools shuttered in its wake. Accompanying strong winds, sometimes gusting above 50 mph, led the National Weather Service to officially classify the system as a blizzard in New London County.
With temperatures set to plummet and blustery winds continuing, some schools already have decided to close Friday, too. Those closures are available at theday.com.
At a late morning medical call on Cedar Grove Avenue on Thursday, New London’s preparation shined through the blowing snow. A vehicle with four-wheel-drive traveled with the usual responders in case it had to traverse a road impassable by ambulance. And two public works employees showed up to help shovel the sidewalk of the home in question, as well as the area behind the ambulance.
The call was for an elderly man who reportedly was not breathing.
Inside, EMTs followed a relatively new statewide protocol — one that calls for prolonged CPR administration on scene rather than immediate patient transport. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t revive the man.
Though the death wasn’t considered suspicious, police remained on scene after everyone else had left to await funeral home personnel.
“Today it’s probably going to take hours,” said Battalion Chief Edward “Ted” Sargent, sitting in the driver’s seat of his own four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Compared to the last two days in the city, when the fire department averaged 30 calls per day, the morning was relatively quiet despite — or perhaps because of — the blizzard pounding the region.
There were a couple of other medical calls, a situation where a broken sprinkler pipe needed a temporary fix and a case of burned food on the stove, Sargent said. For the most part, people seemed to be staying inside.
And it was tame compared to other storms Sargent has endured in his 29-year career. At the department’s Bank Street headquarters Thursday, he recalled a day about two decades ago when the wind was stronger and the visibility worse. A firefighter at the time, he ended up responding to a car blaze that day. On scene, firefighters could smell the smoke, but through the violently swirling snow, at first couldn’t locate the burning car.
And there was January 2011, when a series of storms in relatively quick succession left snow piled up around the city and fire apparatus stranded.
“That was probably the worst storm as far as affecting us responding to calls,” Sargent said.
It doesn’t hurt that the department’s new ambulance, brought on board in October, has four-wheel-drive. It’s a first for the city, Sargent said.
The department also had 20 instead of 16 employees working Thursday — a couple to staff the extra four-wheeldrive vehicle and a couple to staff a third ambulance for South Station, which is at 25 Lower Blvd. That station doesn’t usually have an ambulance on hand.
“Today, if we went as far as Ocean Beach (from the Bank Street headquarters), it would take a long time,” Sargent explained.
That public works employees were on hand at Cedar Grove Avenue to shovel also was by design. They’re looped into the activities of the city’s Emergency Operations Center, which on Wednesday was partially activated as a precautionary measure.
Operating out of the fire headquarters, the center on Thursday featured one person updating the city’s website and Facebook page; members of the police, fire and public works departments monitoring calls, and Deputy Emergency Management Director Vernon Skau adding each New London call to a statewide system that allows for regional communication.
If the situation were to deteriorate further, fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Henry Kydd said, officials would call in an Eversource liaison and get a total of about 15 people in the room.
On Thursday afternoon, Kydd gave Eversource credit: Its employees spent hours Wednesday ridding area towns of potentially problematic trees and branches ahead of the storm, he said.
Kydd said he, Skau and Deputy Emergency Management Director Jeffrey Rheaume have rewritten the emergency operations plan during their time with the city. The result? Emergency response is smoother than it once was, Kydd said, and will be even more so once 10 new laptops the department recently purchased are in use.
“It’s much more organized than it used to be,” he said.