The governor recognized what he saw in Fair Haven Tuesday: a warming planet.
“This is climate change,” he said as he stood a half-block away from a payloader scooping mountains of snow from Shelter Street, a side road that hadn’t seen a plow until Tuesday.
The governor was on a photo-op stop in what has become a familiar routine: touring the state to survey monster storm damage.
It used to be in Connecticut that a two-term governor might have one massive storm to oversee cleaning up. Ella Gasso will always be remembered for the blizzard of ‘78, her one big storm challenge.
Since Malloy took office in January of 2011, the state has been pummeled by Snowmaggedon (more than 40 inches of snow in New Haven, for instance, in one month). Hurricane Irene. The freak October 2011 snowstorm that knocked out power and decimated trees statewide. Superstorm Sandy (already a fading memory three and a half months later?). And now Winter Storm Nemo, a blizzard that paralyzed New Haven with 34 inches of snow, the city’s biggest blizzard in more than a century.
Malloy has already successfully asked the president to declare this state an official disaster area three times. And the governor’s first term still has almost two years left.
“I think climate change is giving more severe weather more frequently as the environment continues to warm,” Malloy told the Independent during his stop. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch excerpts.)
After having served as Stamford’s mayor for 14 years, Malloy was already used to round-the-clock jaunts supervising road clearing and emergency public safety operations. He was asked if in the new climate change era, states will see more and more mayors becoming governors, as the governor’s job becomes more like a mayor’s. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he responded. “I think people will look to executive and administrative experience when they make those choices.”
Malloy said that he had remarked since the beginning of his term that “being governor was a lot like being mayor.” Still, “it’s been a lot [of emergency storm management] in a short period of time … I think there’s an appreciation that the state is better prepared than it was two years ago. We have taken lessons [like] holding utilities to a higher standard.
Nevertheless, he added, “government goes on.” When Nemo melts into memory, for instance, there’s the matter of an austerity budget to pass.