GOOD Morning Wilton Editor Heather Borden Herve spoke with Wilton’s Emergency Management Director/Fire Chief Jim Blanchfield about the Town’s response to Sunday’s historic rain and flooding that hit Wilton. Among the highlights:

  • Residents should register for the town’s new Emergency alert system, Everbridge Alerts.
  • Most roads in Wilton are open since Sunday’s storm. Residents are still asked to drive with caution as debris and water may still be present on roadways. Do not attempt to drive through flooded roadways.
  • Anyone needing emergency assistance should call 9-1-1, and contact the Wilton Police Department non-emergency main number 203.834.6260 for any other non-emergency questions.

GOOD Morning Wilton: Whether it’s DPW, your guys at Fire, the Police, CERT, EMS how many people have been out there, and what’s the work been like in the last 24 hours?

Chief Jim Blanchfield: We’ve had extra personnel on since yesterday afternoon. Police, Fire and Department of Public Works have all had extra crews on duty since then. Police and Fire still maintain additional personnel as we deal with the storm’s aftermath. We had multiple activations for the CERT team yesterday into the night for managing road closures. They were stretched last night as well. We kept the road closures up, but we pulled the CERT folks in for safety concerns last night.

All the roads now are open, and presently the DPW crews are not only checking the roads as well as the bridges, but also starting to coordinate any debris removal that’s needed. We’ve also spoken to the CT State Department of Transportation, as they’re responsible for the state roads, and they’re doing the same thing right now.

We have the Fire Department going back and checking in on the folks that, specifically on Arrowhead Rd. and Newtown Tpke. that were asked to evacuate yesterday, late afternoon, early evening, and we’re getting a count now to see how many people are back in those properties, as well as the police are also going around town just checking to make sure all the areas which suffered from significant flooding. They’re checking on those properties now. We’ve also got the Building Department involved, they’re also checking a lot of the commercial structures up and down Rte. 7 and working with the owners of those properties to see if they have any needs.

We’ve spoken directly with ASML. We have another meeting with them to assist them if they need anything relative to any cleanup that’s needed. So we’ve got that meeting coming up a little later.

We did have our first Emergency Operation Center meeting yesterday, early evening. That included the Town Administrator, First Selectman, myself, Police Chief Tom Conlan, as well as representatives from DPW and EMS. We’ve had a second meeting this morning, and we’re going to have a third one this afternoon, just to continue to coordinate any cleanup effort that’s needed. Also, Steve Pierce from Parks and Recreation[/Grounds] was involved in those meetings as well.

GMW: When you talk about cleanup, I know that there is more rain in the forecast. With rain coming this afternoon and into the evening, what do you want people to
know?

Blanchfield: We want people to continue to make sure anything they do, they do it safely. The amount of rain coming in this afternoon, we’re watching the forecast. It’s not similar to yesterday. But that doesn’t mean people should take anything lightly with respect to any standing water they have on their property.

Stay away from the rivers or any water that’s moving quickly, because that can just lead to real problems. And thankfully, we’ve had none of those so far. We’ve had some properties that were significantly impacted, but we’ve had nothing like any sort of house being carried away or anything with regard to injuries.

GMW: Any injuries that you heard of?

Blanchfield: No, as of right now, we don’t have any injuries to report from responders or citizens of Wilton that are directly related to the storm.

GMW: One thing I do want to address, because I am seeing chatter online. People feel like they heard very little from the town. And I know there’s a new alert system. You and I have been trying to get together to talk about it [for an article]. But people felt like they heard nothing from the town or town leadership.

Blanchfield: I can only speak to the alerts: We did continue to send, we used two platforms for announcements. We did send out our E-alerts, which we’ve done in the past, and those went out. And we also used the new, Everbridge platform as well. I anticipate that not as many people have signed up for that yet, but that will continue to be a robust way to get alerts out. But we did send them out on the E-alert system as well. We can always work on that, and we are in the process of working on the Everbridge systsem rollout.

GMW: What can we tell people now about the Everbridge rollout? How do people sign up? What do people need to know about that?

Blanchfield: I would recommend that they go to the Town Website. On the front page, there is a signup notification button at the bottom, and just about on every other page. We send notices out on how to sign up. It’s very simple and easy. That is going to be the new way we get information out, in addition to the E alert system, which we’ve used in the past.

GMW: People said that they kept seeing messages that said, “Roads are closed,” but there was no official list of closed roads. People were saying to post them on Facebook because the town wasn’t listing them. Why was there no list?

Blanchfield: What we do after any significant event, we end up having an after-action review, and certainly messaging will come up, and we’ll discuss different ways to do it. The town is discussing possible social media avenues and things of that nature too.

[First Selectman Toni Boucher] was there. She was there since the beginning of this, working with all department heads to make sure there were enough resources available. And was making sure everybody had what we needed to have a good response here in Wilton. And I know she’s working hand in hand with the state presently as well.

I like to think that we did our best to get the messaging out of this, but we can always continue to work on it and listen to the community as to what avenues might also be a way we want to do it.

GMW: Anything else you want us to tell people?

Blanchfield: Not right now, other than the standard info, which is, if you have an emergency, please call 9-1-1; if it’s not an emergency, certainly call the police department at the non-emergency number [203.834.6260].