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About 7,400 Danburians Without Power, 11 Roads Closed

Storm restoration work must continue through the weekend, but it looks like schools will reopen Monday.

If the roads are clear, if the wires are safe and the children are safe, "The buses will roll Monday," said Emergency Management Director Paul Estefan Friday morning.

He said the city is checking Stadley Rough Elementary School Friday to make sure its power is functioning properly.

"With that checked, all the schools are back online," Estefan said.

The Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut reported that both the Boughton Street Y and the Bethel Y on Grassy Plain Street are open. The Y pool on Boughton Street will reopen at noon Friday.

The school system's administrative office is still without power, but a crew is working to replace a downed poll on Beaverbrook Road. Once the pole is up, the wires are reattached and the circuit working, the administrative offices will reopen.

Estefan said the city had 90 roads blocked at one point. Eleven are blocked Friday morning. On Thursday morning more than 15,000 homes were without power. That number is now down to 7,400 homes.

Estefan said much of the outage is in southern Danbury near Ridgefield, where there is no power to some houses on Miry Brook Road, Carriage House, Spruce Mountain, Cannon Ball, George Washington Highway, and other roads down there. Wooster School and Federal Express are both without power.

"That's a curcuit problem in Ridgefield. Don't even get me started on that," Estefan said.

The city was able to open Route 37 into New Fairfield Thursday evening, Estefan said, and that major road was cut because of problems replacing a downed utility pole. The pole belonged to AT&T, Estefan said, and he called them repeatedly for a crew and he got no help. Eventually, he convinced CL&P to replace the AT&T pole. Then he couldn't reach AT&T to reattach their downed wires.

"I had to call the Emergency Operations Center in Hartford. They had to call AT&T," Estefan said. "I'm not happy with AT&T right now. I'm not happy with Comcast either."

Estefan said reaching someone in charge and getting help from AT&T and Comcast has been nearly impossible.

"CL&P is not a problem. I had to fight to get AT&T," Estefan said.

The city's pump stations for water and sewer are all on line, as are the city's reservoirs and sewer treatment plant. He said the city's general infrastructure is operating safely.

"The city's in better shape," Estefan said. "We're not done."

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Soccer May 20, 2013 at 06:27 pm
g, Let's throw out some more numbers... Here is a site to look at:Read More http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/dgm/report1/basiccon.pdf This is the Connecticut State Department of Education Bureau of Grants Management spreadsheet. It shows and compares what Danbury is paying per student compared to the rest of the state. Looking at the numbers, out of the 170+ districts in the state, Danbury pays the 8th LEAST amount per pupil. Out of the 10 districts in Connecticut that have over 10,000 students, Danbury ranks 2nd LOWEST in the state. This amount is about $3,000 less per pupil than the average of the state and the average of districts with 10,000+ students.
g May 20, 2013 at 01:33 pm
Good afternoon Jessica, Danbury plans to spend approximately $114,000,000 on teaching staff salaryRead More and benefits for the next school year per the school budget here - http://www.danbury.k12.ct.us/bbadmin/Budget/2012-2013%20budget.pdf the total budget is $121,000,000. Teachers, administrators, contracted professionals, staff enrichment programs, staff insurance, and the rest comprise about 95% of the school system budget. See staff cost summary on page 8 of the report. You'll also note our board of education plans to spend a bit more than 3 million dollars on supplies and materials plus a million on equipment. The budget represents a 5% increase from the prior year. On our district home page - http://www.danbury.k12.ct.us/ it says Danbury has 10,300 my calculator tells me that's about $12,000 per child in the district. With $12,000 per child, why are teachers paying for supplies? Hmm ... let me think ... 95% of the budget goes to staff salary and benefits for the long 185 day year .... I have a guess where the money goes. Do you?
Black People are ANIMALS May 16, 2013 at 12:18 pm
You should invite all the spics to the lake to go swimming. The Squantzter is usually hungry thisRead More time of year.