By Paul Silverfarb
Sentinel Editor
The strong winds that blew through the area this week have caused the Greenwich Fire Department to be on high alert.
On Monday, a tree toppled over on the Merritt Parkway, and a day later trees fell on Glenville Road and took down power cables.
According to Greenwich Fire Department Deputy Chief Tom Nixon, GFD was called to the scene near Exit 27 along the southbound side of the Merritt Parkway around 2:45 p.m. on Monday. A tree fell from the side of the road and landed on the Merritt, dumping limbs and branches on all four lanes of the road.
When the tree fell, it also hit a vehicle and trapped a person inside.
The operator of the vehicle had some minor injuries, but the Greenwich Fire Department was able to extricate the driver from the vehicle without the use of any of their specialized hydraulic tools.
Greenwich Fire Department aided in cutting the cutting the tree to open the roadway and to clear a path for the tow truck to remove the vehicle from the road. The GFD cleared the scene around 4 p.m. and the Merritt Parkway was reopened shortly after.
“It seems that we are getting some pretty significant weather events,” Nixon said. “Just because of the amount of mature trees that we have through the town, and just the geographic size, that any time we get any type of significant weather event, it seems like Greenwich definitely gets its share of issues regarding trees and down wires.”
On Tuesday at 9:09 a.m., the Greenwich Fire Department was once again called to a scene where high winds caused problems.
Nixon said that on the corner of Glenville Road and Brookside Drive, there were wires that were burning in a tree. When GFD got to the scene, Nixon stated that they deemed that with the condition of the tree, it was unsafe to leave Glenville Road open.
It was a good thing the Greenwich Fire Department closed the road. Shortly after, the primary line failed and, along with part of the tree holding the power line up, dropped to Glenville Road, burning in the street.
Eversource was called to the scene, along with the town’s tree department. Once Eversource de-energized the area, the Greenwich Fire Department quickly extinguished the fire and was able to leave the scene at 10:55 a.m.
“Unless there is immediate life safety, we just secure the area,” Nixon said. “Obviously, we can’t do any firefighting activities until everything is de-energized. Once we got on scene, the lieutenant on Engine One determined that it was unsafe for traffic to drive underneath the issues, so Glenville Road was closed at Weaver Street and again down by Brookside.”
To say that it was an eventful past few days for the Greenwich Fire Department is an understatement.
“We were pretty busy,” Nixon said. “[Tuesday] we had more weather-related issues that were probably there yesterday but not noticed or are showing now. The majority of the call volume was [Monday] during the high winds.”
While the utility companies do their best to prepare for high winds or other weather events and the Connecticut Department of Transportation has been removing trees close to the Merritt Parkway recently, Nixon knows the importance of always being prepared in case the Greenwich Fire Department is called to the scene.
“If we know that there is a weather event coming, we might double up some of the equipment we have on the truck or make sure anything that is down for repair, like chainsaws or other types of saws, that those repairs are expedited. The same thing with vehicles, as we make sure those are expedited so that we have a full complement of both vehicles and equipment.”
