Phil Costello Photo
Flooded homeless encampment Tuesday evening.
New Haven’s latest Nor’easter flooded a homeless encampment Tuesday night, causing outreach workers to swing into action.
The socially distanced encampment sprang up along the West River at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. As many as 25 people have stayed there at a time, according to Cornell Scott Hill Health homeless program clinical director Phil Costello. When Tuesday’s Nor’easter hit, about 10 were staying there.
The river flooded the encampment more than in any storm since the pandemic began, Costello reported. “We had hurricanes. It never went up that high,” Costello said. The river water — which is “full of bacteria and sewage” — destroyed people’s belongings and flooded tents, he said.
He and other workers were on scene Tuesday night to help people find places to stay.
Columbus House responded by temporarily opening its main Boulevard shelter. That shelter has been closed since the pandemic started, because the agency has been able to put people up in motel rooms.
The crew there “came up with food and clean linens” and got the facility ready, reported CEO Margaret Middleton. Space was made for eight guests; two ended up spending the night there.
Costello said other members of the encampment found places to stay. A few had their tents up on pallets and sought to ride out the storm.
Meanwhile, New Haven weathered the overnight portion of the storm without any more major power outages, according to city emergency management chief Rick Fontana.
A small number of households temporarily lost power as crews responded to fallen trees with wires on Concord Street and on Diamond Street, he said. A tree also fell on a car on Fitch Street near the Hamden line.
“We fared pretty well,” Fontana said.
A previous version of this story follows:
Storm Update: 2,265 Lost Power; Biggest Problem Fixed
City of New Haven
(Updated) As another phase of Tuesday’s Nor’easter bears down on New Haven, officials are asking people not to do what drivers are doing in these photos: trying to plow through flooded streets.
City emergency management chief Rick Fontana asked drivers to avoid getting caught in lake-like roads — especially since this storm has the potential to create floods on streets where you don’t usually find them, due to fallen leaves clogging drains.
These photos were taken in the Brewery Street/Sargent Drive area, which does flood regularly.
At one point Tuesday, 2,265 New Haven households had lost power, according to Fontana.
Downed tree on Fountain Street.
The largest number — some 1,850 customers — were affected after a tree near Fountain and Davis streets in upper Westville, bringing wires down with it. Fontana said as of 1:30 p.m. crews had “done some rerouting” to get the power back on.
Fallen trees on Concord Street and Tolli Terrace on the east end of town also brought down wires, leading to outages.
Fontana said flooding seemed largely under control for now, but that high winds and increased rainfall are expected again beginning around 3:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, the fire department has responded to “several water service calls” for leaks in buildings, according to Assistant Chief Justin McCarthy.
Forecasters predict that the rain will continue falling steadily through the overnight into Wednesday morning, with winds as high as 30 – 40 miles per hour.
Storms like these regularly flood roads like Middletown Avenue and Union Avenue, leaving some drivers stuck when they try to pass through them anyway.
The city anticipates that other streets that don’t usually flood will become inundated this time because of the season, mayoral spokesperson Kyle Buda said: Because recently fallen leaves will clog drains.
“It’s going to be a challenge because of the wind taking down the leaves. Wet leaves find their way to the storm drains,” said city emergency chief Fontana.
“It’s hard to know where it’s going to happen.”
Fontana issued a request: During any break in the rainfall, try to spend a few minutes clearing drains.
No outages or flooding were reported yet as of Tuesday morning, Fontana said, because the beginning of the storm coincided with low tide. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for our area through Tuesday afternoon, a coastal flood advisory from 2 to 6 p.m., and a wind advisory from midnight through noon Wednesday.
Even though some residents may think it is not their responsibility, New Haveners could help alleviate flooded streets near their homes by removing leaves blocking the storm drains.
In the midst of any storm, we all should do our part to do whatever we can to help our neighbors