Easton Officials Happy With Emergency Response to Hurricane Sandy

Easton town officials said that they were pleased with the emergency response to Hurricane Sandy, which crashed through town and left over 3,500 Easton households without power at one point.

"We were well-prepared and responded very well," Town Administrator David Colton said at a board of selectmen meeting last week.

Colton and selectmen were briefed by Fire Chief Kevin Partridge and Department of Public Works Director David Field. Both were new additions to the town's staff since Hurricane Irene struck Easton in August, 2011.

"Every time we go through a transition - we've gone through one in both of these departments since the last emergency event - you wonder how’s it going to go..is it going to work?, and it went off greatly," Colton said.

Partridge told selectmen that officials worked together as part of an "Easton Emergency Management Team" that included the police chief, fire chief and DPW director.

In addition to the many outages, the team dealt with 74 trees down, flooded streets and over 62 wires down. At the height of the storm, eight roads were closed.

By Tuesday evening all roads were open and by Thursday all power was restored to the town, Partridge said.

"During the storm that was the mission: cut and clear and keep all roads passable," Partridge said. "Dave [Field] had his teams out there doing the debris removal while we worked with National Grid to get power back to the community."

Partridge said the team worked with a National Grid liaison throughout the process.

"DPW crews worked long into the night and did a great job with the response," Field added.

Both Field and Partridge agreed that communication with residents was key while dealing with residents. The team sent out public safety messages and updated the town's Facebook page throughout the storm.

"People were very happy to just be able to read about everything that was going on," Board of Selectmen Chair Colleen Corona said.

The DPW is still collecting extra storm debris from residents Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Prospect Street landfill.