Power Safety Measures, Road Closures, Beaches, Public Info Session Friday And More

This is Hurricane Irene Update 7 from First Selectman Fillmore McPherson, sent out at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Electric – Power has been restored to 13% of CL&P’s Madison customers, up from 5% yesterday, including most of the downtown business area. There are at least 12 crews working in Madison with more coming. More and more houses will be back in service soon. That said, it could still take another week before the last house is finally restored.

Power Safety Measure – If you are absent or asleep when the power comes on, you could be in trouble if your stove or some other appliance was turned on when you lost power. For safeties sake, you should turn off your main breaker until power is restored in your neighborhood.

Water – Fill up points are still open at Town Hall, Madison Hose fire house, and the Tidewater Inn. Connecticut Water is maintaining their tanker truck at the North Madison fire house. Downtown stores also have water available.

Road Closures – We plan to have two lane traffic open on Middle Beach Road by the weekend. Until then, the road is closed between Island Avenue and East Wharf Road to everyone except local residents. Circle Beach is also completely closed.

Beaches – All beaches are closed until further notice because of major damage and hazardous conditions. I have arranged with Commissioner Esty of the state DEEP to allow any car with a yellow Madison beach sticker enter Hammonasset Park this week end for free.

Transfer Station – The transfer station in Guilford is back open from 8 to 5 Thursday through Saturday.

Showers – The YMCAs in both Branford and Westbrook are allowing Madison residents to shower for free. The town gym at town campus also has limited shower availability from 7:30am until 7:30pm.

Civic Help – Civic Participation Week has been scheduled for some time to occur from Sept 11 to 18. This is being advanced to start now because we could use the civic help now. If you are a member of a civic group and wish to volunteer to perform a group task, please call Pam McKinnon at 203-640-2629. That is 203-640-2629. For one example, Boy Scout Troop 490 is cleaning up the town green.

Public Information Session – We will hold a public information session on Friday at 5pm at Daniel Hand High School. Everyone is welcome to attend.