Montville discusses what it would do in case of a disastrous flood

Montville ― The town’s fire marshal and the public safety commission on Monday discussed what the town would do in the event of severe flooding, like the disaster that washed away bridges and led to two deaths in Oxford last month.

The Oxford floods were caused by heavy rainfall.

Fire Marshal Paul Barnes told the commission Monday that the National Weather Service’s initial forecast for the Oxford area predicted heavy rain, then was upgraded a few hours later to very heavy rain, and not long after that, to catastrophic rain. By that time, he said houses were already being flooded and residents were calling to be rescued.

“They were behind the eight ball by that time,” he said. “A flood of this magnitude, as quickly as it came, nobody was prepared for it -― nobody was.”

He said the best Montville could do, if faced with a similar situation, would be to pool its resources, open the Emergency Operations Center and “go from there.”

“Have all four fire chiefs, all four departments activated, operating, everybody stay in contact,” he said. “I get quick response from the state for their swift water rescue teams, whether we need them or not. We have dive teams in the area that we can rely on, but who’s to say that they’re not in their own towns.”

In the case of such a flood, he said residents would be alerted via the town’s Everbridge system, which can send emails and messages to people’s phones. He said the alerts would be likely sent to everyone in town.

“We do know certain areas that are low-lying that we would have to evacuate,” he added. “They would get taken care of immediately. Other areas we would have to evaluate, take them on a case-by-case basis.”

Barnes also presented the commission with a list of dams in town that are registered with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The report, prepared by DEEP, grades each dam based on the danger if they were to fail.

Charles Lee, DEEP’s assistant director of dam safety, said the heavy rains that battered the western side of the state last month caused one small dam to fail in Oxford. He said the Seymour had a small failure and Woodbury a partial one.

“None of these were dams that would have resulted in loss of life,” he said.

Dams are graded by DEEP on a scale of C to AA. Lee said C means that if the dam were to fail it would likely result in a loss of life. He said those dams require their owner to have an emergency action plan, detailing what actions they would take if the dam is going to fail, including who to notify, how and what services might be impacted.

The town’s 41 dams, many of which are privately owned, must receive routine inspections by engineers, Barnes said.

The only dam in Montville graded as a C is privately owned Oxoboxo Lake Dam. Eight dams, including Wheeler Pond Dam and Rockland Pond Dam received a B, which Lee said indicates a failure could result in a potential loss of life and infrastructure.

“Montville is bringing this up as a topic of discussion, so kudos to them,” Lee said.

d.drainville@theday.com