The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lamont: Storms like Ida put infrastructure at risk
Surveying a section of washed-out train tracks in the wake of Ida, Gov. Ned Lamont said the state’s shoreline communities and infrastructure are at “extraordinary risk” in the face of climate change.
“This was built 100 years ago,” the governor said, pointing at a section of the rail embankment in Redding that had caved in after the storm dumped record amounts of rain on the state. “They were prepared for storms the likes of which you had 100 years ago — the storms today are very different,” he added.
The storm brought widespread flooding throughout the Northeast, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning in New York City for the first time, and catching many off guard in a region not normally known for floods. The death toll in the region rose to nearly 50 — among them a Connecticut state police trooper who was killed after his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters in Woodbury.
“We also see that these events are also impacting public safety,” said Katie Dykes, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. She said the death toll in the Northeast is on par with Superstorm Sandy.
“There is no engineer that can design infrastructure that is prepared for the climate that we are going to have if we don’t reduce emissions,” Dykes added, something she acknowledged would require coordination with other states and the Biden administration.
The damage to the embankment in Redding was among the destruction that caused Metro-North Railroad to shut down the Danbury branch. The New Canaan branch was also closed, according to MTA officials. Rich Andreski, the state’s bureau chief of public transportation, said they hope to have service fully restored by Tuesday.
The New Haven line, the main artery that runs from Grand Central Terminal along Connecticut’s western shoreline, reopened on a weekend schedule Friday.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the lines go down, but the first time we’ve seen all of the lines go down this way and at the same time had 25 road closures” state Department of Transportation Commis
sioner Joe Giulietti said. He pointed out the storm’s path had it passing through the southern United States, weakening the weather system. “If it was a Sandytype storm, would we be looking at a lot more?” he said.
Ida caused thousands of power outages in Connecticut that were reduced to several hundred by late Friday.
Dykes said she’s heard from people concerned by the more powerful storms. “People are really unsettled, it’s really unnerving to look out your window and see a pond where your backyard used to be,” she said. “People who never had to worry about moving their car before a storm because of a concern about flooding.”
“This is climate change and it is unnerving,” Dyes said. “But there are things that we can do to address this.”