Ellington Residents Seek Shelter

At the shelter at on Monday afternoon, people were showering, charging cell phones, and having lunch.

With 96 percent of town still without power, many have resorted to going to the shelter to meet one need or another.

Deputy Emergency Management Director John Streiber said that as of Saturday night, there were 48 people at the shelter, but that number is expected to rise due to the cold weather.

At lunchtime, 80 people were partaking in the meal.

Streiber said that the CERT team and Ellington Social Services Department were helping to staff the shelter. He said that the majority of the people there were seniors.

He added that the social services department has a list of people who are known to be physically unable to care for themselves so they have been visited. He said that if they were shown to be able to care for themselves – such as keeping their wood stove lit – they were left alone. If not, they were hounded to come to the shelter.

“I have a trooper in here right now talking to two of them who want to go home and neither one is capable of taking care of themselves,” Streiber said. “As much as we don’t want angry people around here, they’re angry at us right now for keeping them here, but we’re trying to save their lives. It’s cold right now.”

According to Streiber, the shelter can also accommodate people who have medical needs – such as an oxygen tank – and have had members of the Ellington Volunteer Ambulance come over to assist these people.

As for when the power will be back on, Streiber said that the power company is not being very positive.

“They didn’t give us any dates and estimations – they did give us an analogy that you’ve got to grow the roots and the tree trunk and the tree before you can have branches and leaves,” he said. “So they’re repairing the roots and root system of everything. There are major line poles down. You can’t turn on the small electricity until you turn on the big electricity. It’s baby steps, if you wish. They’re not giving us an estimate right now. They’re not guessing and we’re not guessing.”

Streiber said that some requests have been made to CL&P about where to turn on power. He said that these have been made so that the town can get commercial businesses going – like McDonald’s, Big Y and gasoline stations, or as he says, “the comforts that people need.”

The center of town is clear for the most part and residents can get to this part of town from most other parts of town.

Streiber said that for those who can’t get out – and there are some roads that are still blocked off – they are being shown how to safely get out. This includes how to safely walk around all the debris and downed wires, and then perhaps get a ride to where you need to go from there.

One concern that the emergency management team does still have is with people using generators. Streiber said to use caution when using a generator so that it doesn’t feed back into the grid system and kill a line worker or even a neighbor.

“It can be dangerous,” he said.