The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
State of emergency issued
Power of ice dams, floes prompt awe, concern, frustration in Haddam
HADDAM — The town’s top official declared a state of emergency Wednesday night, acknowledging she has exhausted all resources dealing with the repercussions of a massive, sixmile-long ice jam backing up the Connecticut River.
“I want to be more proactive than reactive,” said First Selectwoman Lizz Milardo, considering the weekend is coming and the town has a non-paid fire department and Emergency Medical Services force. “Everyone in this town is a volunteer.
“It gives me the tools to put everyone on notice to say, ‘This is what we have to do.’ If I have to force any evacuations, I can. If I need to close roads, I can.”
Her appeal to the governor cited “a condition of danger to life and property.”
Temperature fluctuations are the culprit. The river froze, then melted with the rain last weekend, then froze again, Milardo said. “We don’t really know how thick it is or how deep it is.”
The U.S. Coast Guard cutters Bollard and Hawser are working in tandem to penetrate the fields of broken-up blocks of ice after meeting in Essex Thursday at 10 a.m., Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier said Thursday afternoon.
With temperatures hovering around freezing, crews “got underway assessing the river to see if there are any major pockets of ice, and to look for debris,” he said.
Wednesday morning, the Coast Guard deployed the tug Hawser from New York to relieve its 60-foot cutter Bollard, which was turned back Tuesday at Essex.
The vessels attack the ice together, Strohmaier said.
“It got to the point where the capability of the cutter itself maxed out and there was a lot of debris and unknown objects in the river,” he said.
The weather is a big factor in Coast Guard operations, he said. “If the temperatures get cold again, it is possible that could create a return of ice, so they’re trying to cut a path so the ice can proceed downriver and eventually proceed down to the (Long Island) Sound.”
Their mission has become more urgent with warmer weather anticipated for the weekend, Strohmaier said.
The ice is jammed up in two locations, said the hobbyst photographer and Higganum resident Eweather, who declined to give his real name due to his vocation. He’s been documenting weather in his area along the Connecticut River for a decade.
Since Tuesday, Eweather has provided images, videos and time-lapse footage of what nature can do in winter on his Twitter account and Facebook page.
Numerous meteorologists and reporters have cited the social media posts he’s pieced together from his observations and others’ on social media.
“When we originally went through that cold spell, the river froze, so it was one big sheet of ice across. It reminded me of when a pickup truck drove across the ice in Haddam,” he said. “When the rain came, it warmed up.”
Then the river levels rose, ice chunks broke up, began to flow downstream, and got caught in places like the East Haddam Swing Bridge, he said. “They all pushed together.”
The ice originally formed Saturday. “Sunday, it broke loose and we saw a lot of damage,” he said, destroying docks, retaining walls and some houses.
The river rose and it was warmer when we got the rain, he said. “There are still big pieces, chunks, of ice a foot thick moving down the river.
“The power is incredible. It takes out anything in its path,” he said, noting his mother’s yard sustained damage to part of her patio terrace. One of his videos shows giant slabs of “very, very, heavy rocks, splitting within seconds from the enormous pressure.”
The sound left him dumbstruck, he said.
Eweather said there’s a smaller ice field in Essex, just north of Hamburg Cove, and the colossal one just north of the swing bridge, which spans through to Pratt & Whitney in Middletown.
Milardo said she’s concerned and frustrated at the situation of not knowing what is happening with the ice.
“Today it’s a little better,” she said Thursday afternoon. She’s hearing from residents that low-lying areas in town and across the river in Haddam Neck — both sides of the Connecticut River — are experiencing significant flooding in spots.
“It’s getting to the point, ‘Where is all the ice going to go?’ The water line is coming up pretty far considering we’re in winter,” said Milardo, who was reassured a bit Thursday afternoon after a conference call with the Coast Guard.
“Even the snowfall we just got would only cause a half-inch to an inch of additional water” in the river, she said marine officials told her.
She’s encouraged that the cutter seems to be making progress. That, combined with rain expected to come Tuesday, could help unclog the channel, she said.
The tugs are plodding along, making headway, Milardo said, cutting a little bit at a time, then watching where the ice is going. “They, they go back to make sure it’s stacking on the shore.
“They don’t expect (the cutters) to get to the Swing Bridge until Saturday then move up toward Middletown after that. They’re moving very slowly, but they sound hopeful. They’re chipping away at it little by little, following the deep part of the channel. I’m hoping that’s going to do it.”
Milardo said she’s consulted selectmen from surrounding towns, fire chiefs and staff at the Region 2 Department of Homeland Security for their opinions.
“The big if is ‘what’s going to happen?’ The question for me is — and time will tell — if they’re able to break through, how much water is going to come?”
Meanwhile, the Connecticut River at Middle Haddam is under a flood warning through 6 a.m. Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, which expects river levels to slowly recede through Saturday morning.