Superstorm Fear: How Long Will Our Homes Survive?

Residents who travel Linden Avenue along the Branford shoreline know about natural hazards. Now they want to learn about mitigation.

Battered by super storms, blizzards and flooding from high tides, residents from Beckett Avenue to Meadow Street to Hotchkiss Grove to Linden Avenue are looking for answers. 

So the majority of people attending a Hazard Mitigation Workshop in Branford Monday were Linden Avenue area residents who were nearly stranded by Tropical Storm Irene. The massive storm surge severely damaged the only road to the peninsula where 400 families live in the Indian Neck and Pawson Park neighborhoods.

“Mitigation is whatever we can do to reduce the impact of these hazards,” said Jamie Caplan (pictured), whose Massachusetts-based consulting company is developing a Hazard Mitigation Plan for Branford and nine other towns.

“There are mitigation dollars available to you,” Caplan told the crowd. ​“Once the plans are approved, they are eligible for additional levels of funding.” Plans must receive local, state and federal approval before towns can apply for FEMA mitigation grants. ​“It’s an involved process, but it’s not like playing the lottery…the chance of receiving funding is very good,” she said.

The workshop was sponsored by the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG), which is working with 10 towns to develop a regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. In addition to Branford, the towns are Bethany, Hamden, Madison, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Wallingford, West Haven and Woodbridge. Five other towns in the SCRCOG — East Haven, Guilford, Meriden, Milford and New Haven — already have local plans.

First Selectman Anthony ​“Unk” DaRos said long-range planning is vital. ​“We have to look at the big picture,” he said. ​“You can’t mitigate for these overnight …It takes a big plan to do this.”

Before the session started, each of the 50 people attending was asked why he or she came. Public officials said they are concerned about making the community safer from natural disasters.

Residents from the Linden Avenue area said they are concerned about the storms and the financial impact to the Linden Shore District, which is a separate taxing district that maintains flood erosion control systems in their shoreline neighborhoods. Other residents and business owners said they are tired of the flooding from storms and high tides.

“I’m concerned about how much longer I can afford to stay in my home,” said one Linden Avenue area resident.

Repairs to Linden Avenue after Tropical Storm Irene cost about $400,000, with the Linden Shore District responsible for $56,000. The peninsula is particularly vulnerable to coastal storms and was significantly damaged by the deadly 1938 hurricane and again by Hurricane Gloria in 1985. 

“Indian Neck access is under threat,” resident Bob Taplin told the Eagle as he studied a storm surge map prepared by the consulting team. Taplin is pictured at right.

The regional plan is slated for completion by the end of summer. It must then be approved by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), and by FEMA.

“Our goal is to get 10 communities to work together to come up with one plan,” Caplan said. The regional plan will also include projects that are specific to each town. For example, Caplan mentioned some potential neighborhood projects that are already listed in the plan, including Linden Avenue, Meadow Street, Indian Neck Avenue, and Hotchkiss Grove. 

Caplan, who has spent months doing research for this project, said talking with people at the workshops is her favorite part of the planning process. ​“It really helps build some consensus for the plan,” she said.

Caplan, along with town representatives have been meeting monthly, and have been compiling results of a survey regarding people’s opinions about hazards in each community. Click here to read a story about that.

“The majority were from Branford and Madison,” Caplan said, displaying a chart showing that of 250 survey respondents in the 10 towns, 38.5 percent were from Madison and 27.8 percent were from Branford.

Caplan asked everyone at the workshop to fill out surveys, and said people may contact her through the SCRCOG; or Town Engineer Janice Plaziak, who is Branford’s representative to the regional mitigation planning committee.

Plaziak said in terms of emergency preparedness and response, the town has done a good job. She said the hazard mitigation grants money could be used for remediation in flood-prone areas. ​“We can’t prevent flooding everywhere, but we can be prepared when it comes,” she said.

Caplan and the consulting team have been doing regional profiles, collecting data, doing risk assessments, talking to people and identifying hazards, ​“We’re building a case of what we’re going to do to mitigate these hazards,” she said.

Caplan said there are common themes in each of the communities ​“Flooding is a huge concern, no matter where you live and power outages.” She said the priority hazards that people are concerned about are severe winter storms and nor’easters, hurricanes and tropical storms, coastal and river flooding, and rising seas and road flooding.

Caplan said she was impressed with the size of the turnout at the Branford workshop and with the level of interest. ​“We want FEMA to see the level of participation in this community,” she said as she asked people for their comments. 

“We want to know what you think and what you say. It’s absolutely important,” Caplan said.

For additional information see the SCRCOG Web site and click on the hazard mitigation link. The workshop is also being broadcast on BCTV, Branford’s public television station.

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