Politics & Government

Glastonbury Schools Closed, Emergency Management Prepared for Snowstorm

Town officials held a meeting Thursday to prepare for the potential effects of the snowstorm.

 

Glastonbury schools are closed, public works employees are working and emergency first responders are prepared to deal with the expected fallout of the snowstorm set to dump up to two feet of snow on the state.

Town officials, the emergency management team and Glastonbury first responders—fire, police and EMS—met Thursday to prepare for the potential snowfall, Town Manager Richard J. Johnson said.

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The town has not yet decided whether or not to open the emergency shelter at Glastonbury High School or put extra staff at the fire department or police department.

The town’s emergency radio station—1570 AM—will be active during the storm.

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School Superintendent Alan B. Bookman announced that Glastonbury Schools would be closed today on Thursday night.

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The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard watch for Glastonbury as a powerful winter storm is expected to affect the region starting Thursday night and lasting into Saturday morning.

The blizzard watch will be in effect from Friday afternoon and continue through to Saturday afternoon.

The storm system will bring with it heavy snow, sleet and damaging winds — with gusts blowing up in excess of 60 miles per hour.

At CL&P and United Illuminating, the state's two major utilities, are gearing up for the storm. Spokesmen at both companies said the major concern is the high winds the storm is expected to bring - gusts of up to 60 MPH - and the possibility that warm air pushing up from the south could mean a heavy, wetter snow in some regions.

"We've already held a few internal meetings and storm-team calls and we're reaching out to external resources," said Michael West, UI's spokesman. "All of our UI crews will be available" throughout the weekend, he added.

Mitch Gross, CL&P's spokesman said his utility has issued an "all hands on deck" alert to its workers, is holding meetings throughout the today with workers and expect to have "hundreds and hundreds" of workers on duty to deal with outages that could occur this weekend.

Gross, however, cautioned that crews will not be able to restore power during the storm or when the winds are high because of the dangers that could create.

"Our line workers and tree workers will be out there as long as it's safe," he added.

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