Responding to the storm

Several town officials have referred to Saturday's storm as the worst they've seen in decades.

Heavy winds and rain caused hundreds of downed trees and power lines in approximately 135 locations around town, and 27 additional locations with only trees down, according to Darien Police Chief Duane Lovello.

The number of downed trees can be attributed to wind gusts between 35 mph and 45 mph, as well as saturated soil, according to Bill Jacquemin, a meteorologist at the Connecticut Weather Center in Danbury.

"The reason it was so damaging has to do with the fact that as we come out of winter, and the frost leaves the ground, the soil is very loose," Jacquemin said.

"Not to mention that we also now have saturated soil, completely full of water, which is not good for anchoring trees. This allows wind that normally wouldn't take trees down to do so," he said.

According to Jacquemin, 1.86 inches of rain fell on Darien on Saturday, creating an especially muddy mix in the soil.

Downed branches can likely be attributed to the wind speed, and the force of the rain coming down.

"Coming out of winter, a lot of those branches are dead," he said.

The damage left more than 3,700 Darienites without power at the peak of outages, according to Connecticut Light & Power. As of press time on Wednesday, the number was steadily decreasing, and CL&P spokesperson Mitch Gross said 99 percent of residents would have their power restored by Wednesday night.

The power outages blocked off several major arteries in town for multiple days, and presented hazardous conditions to both drivers and pedestrians, forcing Darien Public School administrators to cancel school for the first three days of the week, and the police department to repeatedly instruct residents to avoid unnecessary travel.

"I've been here for 28 years, and I've never seen damage like this before," Lovello said on Monday.

"What we saw Saturday night was unbelievable. You have to treat it with respect," he said.

Inside the communications center at police headquarters on Hecker Avenue, officers fielded 320 911 calls, which Lovello said is about 10 times the amount of calls the department usually receives on a Saturday night.

"Plus other calls. It was pretty chaotic in there," he said. "There were officers on their hands and knees taking phone calls on pads."

There was a similar sense of urgency at the Darien Fire Department, where volunteers responded to more than 20 calls between Saturday and Tuesday, according to Lt. Shane Smith.

"It's been hectic. We've been busy at the department. In four days we've had over 20 calls. We had 20 calls all month last month, and we've matched that in four days," Smith said.

The calls ranged from downed trees, burning wires, fire alarm activations, gas leaks and carbon monoxide alarms. But the high rate of calls wasn't the only challenge the department faced during the weather event, Smith said.

"The radios are down so our pagers aren't going off," Smith said. "Usually the police department is the primary dispatch, but we have to do it from here rather that the PD."

So the fire department has been relying on other means of communications, such as they fire horn to notify its members of emergencies.

All three of the town's fire departments are volunteer operations.

"It's probably taken up about 70 percent of my weekend," Smith said. "Luckily we've had a lot of firefighters down here to swap out so people can go home and rest and spend time with their families, but it's been one wild ride.

"I've been with the fire department for 12 years, and I've never seen anything like this. It's just catastrophic what it's done to this town. It's devastating. I've never seen the amount of downed trees and power lines for this amount of time," he said.

All the volunteers in his department are well trained to handle unsafe conditions, he said, but this weekend's conditions were enough to rattle them.

"On Saturday night, we got called to a burning power line -- it was one of many calls that night. We were on Overbrook [Lane], and we had to get a chainsaw and cut a tree out of the road, cut it in half, and then in pieces to move it out of the way to get the truck through," he said. "Then hen we tried coming back to the firehouse, there were power lines down where we had just been. We're lucky they didn't land on us.

"We heard trees falling all over and heard the power lines just swinging above us. It was very nerve-wracking."

According to Lovello, there were "luckily" no injuries reported in town due to the storm.

David Bayne, who served as acting first selectman while First Selectman Dave Campbell was out of town, said that the town's first priority is safety, and Darien is prepared to spend as much money as it takes to repair the damages in town.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Public Works had expended about $28,000 on overtime and equipment used during to the storm and the recovery. The overtime was due to crews out on the road as well as extra operation at the town dump, which was open daily until 6:30 p.m., accepting limbs and branches from residents' lawns.

It will be a while before the police department can account for the additional funds used on overtime during the incident, Bayne said.

"The police department, fire department and DPW have been working their tails off to do a good job for the town," Campbell said over the phone on Tuesday. "It's just an emergency that was unfortunate, and I think people should be happy we have such great groups of paid staff and volunteers who have stepped up and done are still doing a good job."