Revenues And Emergency Response Better Than Expected

Groton's revenues exceeded expectations and expenditures were less than expected according to preliminary numbers reported to the Town Council Committee of the Whole Tuesday.

Salvatore Pandolfo, the town's finance director, said the numbers are preliminary and unaudited but he anticipates $889,000 will be deposited into the general fund balance.  Pandolfo said expenditures came in under budget and there was more than $1 million dollars in unexpected revenues.

Pandolfo also said the tax collection rate this year was just above 97 percent.

Tropical storm Irene update

Groton incurred approximately $100,000 to $150,000 in costs related to the tropical storm Irene, according to Jeffrey Williams, the deputy director of the town's emergency management department.

Williams said a small amount of the costs are due to actual damage of town property but most of the costs are from salaries of public works employees and contracted labor, equipment usage, rental equipment costs, and running generators. Williams said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will likely reimburse 75 percent of those costs.

Director of Emergency Management Joe Sastre reported that the emergency shelter at housed 75 people, and various pets, when the storm hit the area at the end of August. Sastre said that approximately 16 of those people required electricity for life support.

"We're much more dependent on electric power," he said. "A good portion of our population can't tough it out or they stop breathing without electricity."

Sastre said that those people needed Red Cross housing assistance after the shelter closed because much of the town was without electricity for days after the storm ended.

Sastre also said that the town's fiber optic network and the cell phone towers, which are dependent upon electricity and back-up generators, were unreliable after the power outages.

"Without power we lost most of our stuff," he said. "We started to rely really heavily on our cell phones and were somewhat limited in our ability to communicate with the public."

Sastre said before the storm he agreed, "kicking and screaming", to a Facebook page, but that "the website proved that social media was a good method of disseminating information and is well worth the effort."

On the supply side, Sastre said 15 skids of Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) and 15 skids of one-liter bottles of water were by FEMA and that hundreds of hours were donated by public works, the police department, citizens and submarine base volunteers to distribute those supplies and to assist at the regional respite center.

The was a coordinated response by the Town of Groton Emergency Management Department and it's Citizen Emergency Response Team, the and the Red Cross. The respite center gave 573 meals and 480 hot showers to residents of Groton and surrounding towns who didn't have power in the days following the tropical storm.

Sastre reported that by Sunday afternoon, "after 16 hours of work the public works had cleared every road that was not blocked with a power line," he said but that the town would wait much longer for utility crews to arrive.

The Connecticut Light & Power website reported approximately 95 percent of customers in Groton were without power at the height of the outage.

"It was an inconvenience for most," Sastre said, but "we do need to find out as a community why CL&P communication with us failed. We've always had a good relationship with them. This time around, not so much."