Medfield Officials Praise Town Departments for Response to Storm

Medfield Town Administrator Michael Sullivan said at Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting there were “a lot of crisis moments” in town during last weekend’s surprise snowstorm that left many residents without power for days.

“We did have some problems [with the storm] and the police and fire were particularly hampered by the storm because their telephone systems were offline for quite a bit of that time,” Sullivan said. “We also had the water treatment plant [lose] its power and was on emergency generator. At one point, none of our wells were working. The only one that has a generator, I believe, is well No. 6. The batteries went [out] on that [but] our DPW mechanic was able to use a generator.”

Sullivan thanked the efforts of Hank Marcell, Eoin O’Corcora, Verizon and others for working to get the phone lines restored to and the police and fire stations.

Selectman Mark Fisher added the efforts of , and public works deserve public recognition for the countless hours and hard work each department has put in to restore the town to normalcy after Saturday’s storm.

“The town has done a great job as always and I think it’s important that we acknowledge that and let everyone know,” Fisher said. “People don’t understand how much work goes on behind the scenes. Everyone takes for granted the water is going to be there and everything else. [DPW, police, fire] got called out Saturday night when the storm hit and worked around the clock. [They’re] working in the rain and the snow without going to sleep. It’s important for people to understand that people work really hard in this town.”

Medfield Chief of Police Robert E. Meaney Jr. said the town is fortunate to have its departments work well with each other, explaining cooperation goes a long way into correcting issues in town that arise from storms like Irene and the October Nor’easter.

“From what I’ve seen here from being here, living here, working here is there’s no issues between departments,” Meaney said. “Everybody works together seamlessly. I say it because it’s not always accurate in other areas. Everyone here seems to get along, we work together and we get it done. … “Fine job by the Highway Department, police officers and firefighters out there.”

In addition to the crises Sullivan mentioned the town faced with loss of power, Meaney outlined several other issues the town dealt with over the course and in the aftermath of the storm.

“Many roads had been closed around town [over the course of the storm],” Meaney said. “Hartford Street was closed, Nebo Street was closed. Everything is open now. … A lot of branches and trees [were] protruding into the road. Wires [were] low hanging. That was one of the major factors for the decision to not have school on Monday in addition to the fact that the high school, middle school and Wheelock School had no power.”

According to police logs, Medfield police and fire responded to 62 storm-related calls from Saturday to Tuesday, with the majority of them being downed trees and wires in roadways.

Meaney commended the Highway Department for assisting NSTAR and clearing the roads of trees, branches and other storm-related debris.

“The Highway Department is again doing an exceptional job,” Meaney said. “They are working in conjunction very well with NSTAR, who deals with the technical stuff because they’re the skill people with the technical training to figure out the wires. The Highway Department is literally picking the stuff up off the ground so NSTAR can just move on to the next issue and not waste time dealing with the ground stuff.”

The Medfield Fire Department has also been busy responding to calls of sparking wires as well as utility poles and trees catching fire.

“The fire department responded to smoke inside of buildings, wires sparking, trees on fire and all of that has been going on for a couple of days,” Meaney said. “One of the things that happens is NSTAR will repower a section of town and then you find out where all of the wires that were sitting up against the trees [are] because they start to spark. Sometimes you catch a tree on fire and the fire department goes out and deals with that.”

Meaney said the largest amount of power outages in town due to the storm peaked at 57 percent.

“It may have been higher than that before [NSTAR] actually started tracking but that was the largest number I saw and I believe that was early Monday morning,” Meaney said.

As for improvements Meaney would like to see the town make for future storms, he mentioned more generators and better communication with NSTAR.

“One thing, I think the fire chief and I are going to come up with … it’s not a lot of money, is to have generators at Mount Nebo for the police and fire as part of the radio system and then potentially at the state hospital water tower,” Meaney said. “A generator can be purchased for $2,000.”

As for the issue with the phone system during this last storm, Meaney said that has been addressed and fixed.

“The phone system is much better,” Meaney said. “As Mike [Sullivan] mentioned, Verizon and Eoin O’Corcora, the town’s IT person, Hank Marcell, Frank Iafolla and Bill Kingsbury, the fire chief, were [at town hall] working on the generators. We finally figured out what was up with the police and fire telephone system.”