Paul Bass Photo
Police dispatcher Teri Nelson & Elicker at the EOC.
New Haven hadn’t seen a storm like it for more than a century. The next one might come much sooner.
So observed Democratic mayoral candidate Justin Elicker.
Elicker, an East Rock aldermen, hung out this week in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) under the 200 Orange St. municipal office building to see firsthand how officials were coordinating the around-the-clock response to Winter Storm Nemo. The blizzard buried New Haven in 34 inches of snow. It was the city’s biggest snowstorm since the 1800s.
Climate change is bringing more and more monster storms our way, Elicker observed (echoing an observation the governor made in a New Haven visit Tuesday).
“We’re going to start seeing a lot more storms like this in the future. This gives us an opportunity to sit down after the storm and talk about what well and what could be doing better,” he said in an EOC interview. (Click on the play arrow for excerpts.)
He had some ideas.
But first he made a point of praising the work he observed in the EOC.
“Dedicated employees are trying to put out fires a from a hundred-year storm,” he said. “I think it’s pretty impressive,” both what “city employees are doing” and what neighbors are doing out on the streets.
One major Elicker suggestion: “Communication can be improved.”
“A lot of residents feel that their streets are not being treated well and others are. That’s just not true. But empowering residents to know what’s going on” would help earn the public’s trust, he argued. The city can monitor the locations of snow plows through GPS. Why not give citizens the same access? he asked.
He also suggested that the city do a better job of informing people before a storm hits that they can bring their cars off the streets to parking authority garages a full eight hours before the first flakes. Cars parked (and stuck) on streets have delayed the plowing during Nemo.
Similarly he said the city should let people know well in advance of storms where it will tow cars to make room for plows — and then “the city has to follow through” with the pre-snow towing.
Asked about Elicker’s comments, city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, who has overseen the city’s storm response, agreed that climate change may well bring more such monster storms to New Haven more often. He also agreed about the importance of learning from this one. And he agreed that “communication is always important.” In between helping direct emergency vehicles or slow plows, and working every waking hour since last Friday, Smuts has been swiftly adding factual information to news or reader comment posts that have appeared online. Within moments of an article appearing about the Air National Guard’s first day in town, for instance, he explained why a staging area had shifted. He detailed steps the city took to inform people about emergency parking bans.
Smuts said he’s not sure in retrospect how the city would have planned communications differently, especially about towing, given the forecast that preceded Nemo. The city geared up for 10 – 18 inches of snow. The forecasts called for no more than that, he said. So the city planned to two cars on 32 key arteries to make way for plowing. It was going to do some of that towing into Friday evening. Then Nemo pounced on New Haven with unforeseen, and historic, ferocity. Eight inches of snow fell in two-and-a-half hours alone, buffeted by 55-mile-per-hour winds. Snow plows got stuck; ambulances and fire trucks got stuck. The governor even directed ambulances to stay off the roads. The 34 inches that fell, fast, was more than New Haven had seen in over 100 years; even in the blizzard of 1888 the snow took longer to accumulate.
“This was just beyond the scope of what people could conceive would happen,” Smuts said. “There was just too much snow,” and far more than officials anticipated would fall.
Another mayoral candidate, state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield of Newhallville, was asked his take. He counseled patience on citizens’ part.
“It’s a difficult process,” he said of cleaning up from a 34-inch snowfall. “It’s slower than people would like. People have to understand — the best thing is for them to help their neighbors. The city is doing what it can to get people out. Neighbors need to act like neighbors.”
Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez, who’s contemplating a mayoral run, declined to comment for this story.