Hurricane Irene roared across the shoreline Sunday, plunging the towns of Branford and Guilford into darkness and downing hundreds of trees, many with electric wires entangled within them. Many roads along the shoreline were closed.
There were 85 different locations where trees landed on electrical wires, said Kevin Halloran, the town’s newly appointed police chief, who was expected to be sworn in on Sept. 1. “And we have more than 100 trees blocking roads.”
The police are barred from removing wires from trees until Connecticut Light & Power Co. deactivates the wires. Evaluations of those downed power lines was set to begin at 6 a.m. Monday.
First Selectman Unk DaRos said he was deeply concerned about the town’s loss of electrical power. He said he didn’t know when the power would be restored. “We will be lucky to get it in three days.”
High tide in Branford was at 11 a.m. Sunday, creating surges that were 11 feet high in some places. The worst damage, according to Halloran, was in Pine Orchard and Short Beach. In Short Beach, a second-floor porch on a beachfront house came dangerously near to falling into the sea after the house had been pounded very hard with waves. Cars wound up in a lake that formed on Beckett Avenue.
The Pine Orchard country club was flooded and the golf course looked like a lake. Roads nearby were eroded and on the verge of collapsing, DaRos said.
Town crews will be going out at 6 a.m. Monday to assess the damage to the roads. “When the sun is shining, we will get a closer analysis of the roads. We are still surveying the town from one end to the other.”
The hurricane knocked out service for Comcast customers and even the police department was without Internet service or TV all day.
The public can contact police at (203) 481‑4241. In an emergency, call 911. Halloran said he had doubled the police force for Sunday night in order to have a greater presence in the community, because everything is dark.
Branford has opened two emergency shelters for residents in need. One is Mary T. Murphy Elementary School, which will allow residents to bring pets as long as they are confined to a cage. The other is Branford High School.
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Downed phone,cable and power lines mean that Short Beach residents have no access to the the phone land lines that were installed because of the exceptionally poor cell phone reception in the area. In the aftermath of Irene, Short Beach residents have no easy way to communicate from their homes. Can't we please resolve the political wrangling to permit installation of a tower of some kind to improve cell service to the area. It is a matter of public safety at this point.