Hurricane Sandy: South Windsor 'Very Fortunate'

[Updated 6 a.m.] According to CL&P's website, the number of South Windsor residents with power outages is 732, or 6 percent.

[Original story] The story - to the extent that there was a story - to come out of the emergency shelter at South Windsor High Monday evening was just how quiet things were.

South Windsor, it seems, got lucky.

“We are very fortunate,” Deputy Chief of Police Richard Riggs said from the emergency operations center at Town Hall.

Indeed, with over 500,000 Connecticut residents without power as of 10 p.m., only 547, or 4 percent, of CL&P customers in South Windsor suffered outages at the height of Hurricane Sandy. Neighboring Tolland, by way of comparison, reported 92 percent of its CL&P customers as having lost power.

Against that backdrop, just 12 people - including this reporter - retreated to the high school shelter on Monday evening, nearly all of whom did so out of caution rather than necessity.

“We’re hanging in there, just waiting for them to say it’s OK to go back home,” said Irene Bertrand, who said that she pushed her son out of their home before it lost power, remembering last year’s experience with the October nor’easter. “I just felt it was safer. I was told the whole state was going to lose power.”

While the entire state did not lose power, large swaths of it, particularly near the shoreline, did.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered evacuations in a number of municipalities along the shore, from Greenwich to Old Saybrook. The governor also ordered all non-essential state employees to remain home on Tuesday.

In South Windsor, with the exception of some fallen trees, a few downed power lines and a blown transformer or two, the necessity for such extreme measures seemed like a world away.

"When I look at what's happened in the towns around us and the number of power outages there are and the trees down and other damage, I think South Windsor made out very well this time," Chief of Police Matthew Reed said. "We have very light outages as far as power goes."

Such sentiments were not lost on those at South Windsor High on Monday evening.

“There are so few of us here [at the high school shelter] this time,” said a South Windsor woman named Grace, who declined to give her last name. “Last year, there were hundreds of people.”

The major inconvenience this year wasn’t large crowds of people or an extended period of time without power, but the boredom of having to wait until it was time to go home in the morning.

“We’re making the best of a bad situation,” said Burnham, who added that, with the first name Irene, she had plenty of comments come her way about last year’s tropical storm that ripped through the region.

The same held true for the town’s emergency services - fire, police and ambulances - which remained on call for the entire evening, but fortunately had little to which to respond.

A South Windsor ambulance, en route to the hospital, had a tire shredded by a piece of debris that kicked up on the side of the highway on Monday afternoon. The ambulance was being followed by another ambulance and the patient made it to the hospital safely.

Reports came in that some South Windsor neighborhoods - Niederwerfer, Palmer, Sunnyside and Long Hill - lost power or had to be blocked off by public safety officials.

But, for the most part, the major event in town was how uneventful the storm turned out to be.

That may not necessarily be the case, however, for the 4 percent of South Windsor CL&P customers who are without power, and may be so for a little while.

"I think we will see restoration sooner than we did with the last storm because the outages here are not as widespread," Reed said.

Still, depending on the situation, it could be a couple of days before residents have their power restored, Reed said, adding that CL&P promised to have a crew in South Windsor on Tuesday.

"But that crew may be out here just for make-safe situations," Reed said. "Then, when they have a better grasp of what exactly they have in the region, they'll start to set up their restoration schedule."

Schools will remain closed in on Tuesday, as will several other businesses in town.

To learn more, visit the South Windsor Hurricane Sandy Information Center.