Malloy To Visit Montville

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will visit Montville Town Hall Sunday at 10 a.m. to meet with residents and town officials about the emergency response to tropical storm Irene and the power outages that have lingered for six days and counting.

"We're at 13 percent and dropping," said Raymond Occhialini, the fire marshall and director of emergency management for the town of Montville. "It's not as bad as it was." 

Hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to a tropical storm before it hit Connecticut last Sunday, felled trees and power lines all over the state and caused widespread power outages. The major utility company in the state, Connecticut Light and Power, reported that the storm knocked out power to 99 percent of CL&P customers in Montville. 

Occhialini said that he intends to talk to the governor about how communication could be improved between town officials and CL&P, which admitted to being understaffed and unprepared for the effects of the storm and the widespread power outages it caused. 

Occhialini said if CL&P could have shut down the power to the downed wires in roads sooner, he could have dispatched cleanup crews to remove trees and open roads immediately. 

"We wasted a whole day waiting for them," he said of the slow response from CL&P. "There were communication issues."