On the day of the storm I was in my back room watching as the wind started to pick up speed, then the rain came. Straight down at first, then in waves from east to west, and finally horizontal. It stayed that way for 45 minutes or so, then back to straight down for 15-20 minutes when it decided to go horizontal again, but this time from west to east. Not quite an hour of this when the power went out. Soon the rain let up but the howling wind persisted.
I decided to get into my car and check the town out. Many loose branches dotted Pine Drive, and as I turned onto Tamara I met Steve Bowen at the creek. He was removing some larger branched that had almost covered the roadway. After hellos, I proceeded to Clarksburg Road where there was a large tree sprawled across 571, but a single lane had been carved through it. A left on Spruce found a PODs truck trying to make a delivery to the Clark’s old house.
There was a tree in the driveway, and the driver was trying to figure out how to proceed. Turning around I tried South Valley and a left onto Lake where it was clear to Rochdale, then a right onto Farm. Again, I found a large tree spread across Farm with a single lane path. I went on to make a left on North Valley where almost immediately there was a very large tree wrapped around power lines cutting off about 100 feet of roadway.
Here is where I found members of the Millstone Fire Department wrangling chain saws, working their way through the trees. There I also found Greg Defoe, from Roosevelt Public Works, pointing out to Mike Maloney of the MSFD Eleanor Lane. I wish to give a Big Thanks to Mike Maloney and the men and women of MSFD for being out there for us. If not for them, the roads would have been impassable. And thanks, Greg, for putting so much needed time and energy into this disaster. I do not know how you do it, but what you do is much appreciated.
Again, I found myself reversing course and made a right on Rochdale, then a right onto Homestead. Not too far I found Jake offloading a generator from his truck while Becca was observing a 60-foot tree that had just missed their house. Further up Homestead to Eleanor it was found that within 100 yards on Eleanor quite a few trees were entangled with power and cable lines. It was entirely impassable.
John Holden had called me earlier and said that Allentown looked like it had been hit by a tornado and that there was a problem with our water plant generator. Turning into the water plant driveway I saw our generator maintenance guy leaving. At the plant I observed Steve Bowen, Greg Defoe, and George Vassuere talking about what the repairman said. The discussion was about the alternator which had thrown a belt and detached itself. Apparently, the tech had told them that the part was not available anymore. On the spot Greg made some calls and found a new alternator.
I must say that between John Holden, George Vasseur, Greg Defoe, and Greg Possiel we had a group of mechanics who knew how to deal with this emergency. With the added brainpower of Harry Parker and Addison they coaxed the generator into submission and kept the water tower full for the remainder of the outage.
As I continued my drive, I found trees lying on wires on 571 beyond the Mendes farm and again on Nurko Road. Roosevelt was nearly non reachable from Hightstown until Police and MSFD directed traffic until the trees were removed. The whole thing reminded me of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Back in town I would run into Rob Masterson who had just set a generator up for Solar Village to power their meeting room for charging stations as well as a refrigerator for medications. Ken LeCompt had driven his tractor over to off-load the generator from John Holden’s truck.
Rob and Greg Possiel would continue to scout the town for trouble and help where needed.
I am writing this letter to express my deep gratitude and thanks to all those mentioned in this letter. When you see any of these gentlemen around town, be sure to give them a well-deserved THANKS. I am sure they would appreciate it.
Respectfully submitted:
Councilman Joe Trammell