Mayor Domenic J. Sarno announced that all city services and municipal buildings will be reopened for business Thursday, August 6, 2020. The advisory for residents to shelter in place has also been lifted.
Earlier this morning Mayor Sarno declared a state of emergency due to Tropical Storm Isaias, which had damaging winds at tropical storm or hurricane force levels that brought numerous trees and branches down damaging properties and knocking out power across the City. In addition, there was a major water main break on East Columbus Ave, which had left most of the city either without water or with low pressure.
During Mayor Sarno’s early morning cabinet heads meeting to review the city’s situation post Tropical Storm Isaias, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito called the Mayor and offered to send the City the National Guard and/or Department of Conservation and Recreation crews to assist with tree and debris removal from city streets due to the storm.
In addition, Mayor Sarno held a press briefing this morning with Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris, Fire Commissioner BJ Calvi, Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood, DPW Director Chris Cignoli, PBRM Executive Director Patrick Sullivan, City Solicitor Attorney Ed Pikula, Emergency Preparedness Director Robert Hassett, Executive Director for Springfield Water and Sewer Commission Josh Schimmel and Patrick Carnevale the Western Massachusetts Director for Governor Baker, to provide a situational update.
The Springfield Water and Sewer Commission has reported that service and pressure should be restored except in the immediate isolation zone. Springfield Water and Sewer is recommending that customers may have to run their cold water for 15 minutes to flush the system and that customers may notice some discoloration in their water but that it is safe to drink and use.
Eversource is continuing to work with the City of Springfield to restore power to the outages reported across the city. Work is ongoing and power is being restored as downed trees are removed and any damaged equipment is replaced or repaired.
Updates from the City of Springfield press briefing are provided below:
- Mayor Sarno’s administration continues to monitor and reassess overall situation if and when shelter would need to be opened
- Forest Park and the golf courses are currently closed for clean-up aspects.
- The storm also affected the Verizon cell towners but service is starting to come back online.
- City forest crews have been out on the streets since 2:00 a.m. and were back out to clear and move downed trees and branches as of 7:00 a.m.
- Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi has offered his crews to assist the City’s Forestry Division with debris clean up in our City parks.
- DPW is responding to all traffic lights that might have been affected from the storm.
- DPW will conduct tree debris pickup from the storm following normal yard waste procedures on residents recycling day. Tree debris much be bundled up for pick up
- Health Department issues food safety advise – if refrigerator is 40 degrees or lower for 2 or more hours play it safe and throw out your food
- Fire Department is check hydrant pressure and responding to emergency calls for service
- Police Officers are actively patrolling the city for public safety aspects and are providing necessary updates of downed trees and wires along with continuing to monitor reported power outages
Mayor Sarno states, “I want to thank everyone for their quick response to address all of these issues which hit us all at once. From my city team, to Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito, Sheriff Cocchi, and our utility partners, these dedicated crews have been working around the clock to clean up and restore our power and water outages. I want to thank our residents and business community for their patience as we work together to bring everything back online. We all have been through these types of situations before and once again we will get through this together as one.”
The City of Springfield will continue to monitor the situation and will provide any updates necessary.