Community Corner
October Snowstorm: How I Ran Avon Patch without Power
Many of you shared your stories and read our news website during most widespread power outage in Connecticut, but this is the untold story of the writer behind the news.
When the snowflakes began falling as I helped my fellow Theatre Guild of Simsbury cast members move our Curtains set into Simsbury High School on Oct. 29, 2011, I thought flurries were going to be the worst of the storm predicted.
Little did I know, our first weekend of shows would be canceled as that building became a shelter and the Farmington Valley picked up the pieces of the October snowstorm.
Earlier in the day I had interviewed Avon's Kyle Patrick Brennan about his upcoming appearance in The Dark Knight Rises and other acting projects. I had no idea that it would be an early dark night and a lot of trees falling.
Find out what's happening in Avonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Even when I spoke to Avon runner Rachael Rosow about winning her NCCC cross country race before the snow started falling, I didn't know the opponent we would be facing.
Before Tropical Storm Irene hit months before in August, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on the suggested three gallons of water, non-perishables and a jumbo jar of peanut butter that lasted me a year. I had been covering it to prepare my lovely readers and thought that maybe I should prepare. But my Farmington Valley apartment went untouched, so I just didn't need to buy groceries for awhile.
Find out what's happening in Avonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Prior to the October snowstorm there didn't seem to be as much hype, though it was reported. Snow in October? Yeah right! I didn't go grocery shopping. I didn't stock up on batteries, lights and cash. I didn't prepare at all.
Have you ever noticed that if you bring an umbrella it won't rain, but if you forget one it pours? Sitting in Amici Italian Grill when the power went out felt like that as staff brought out candles for patrons and wrote our receipts by hand. What was happening?
After taking some pictures of the snow, the power was still on in my apartment as I wrote updates. When the power went out, my boyfriend convinced me to shut the computer as we tried to figure out what we'd do to handle the lack of heat and the food situation.
We drove to see if my parents had power in Farmington and when we saw that they didn't, we started driving home until we reached a tree fallen over the road where we had been five minutes before. Startled, we decided it would be best to stay the night in Farmington.
The sun was out the next morning and all was quiet on the Farmington Valley front. But seeing the trees and power lines down everywhere made it seem like we were in a war zone.
The areas densely populated with businesses were all closed, except for Big Y on Route 44, which ran on a generator. That meant no food and no gas. I think I had a pastry and a banana from Cumberland Farms in Burlington that morning as they served customers even though their power was out.
Luckily, my boyfriend's apartment in Naugatuck was in the 5 percent of his town that still had power, so I was able to sleep and write from there with a strong internet connection. I commuted back and forth nearly every day to check in on Avon.
Facebook became flooded with one main questions: "When is my power coming back on?" So I started filling out a widget map that market areas streets that had power and the requests for power restoration estimates became difficult to keep up with, though I tried to answer every question!
I even got a phone call asking if I'd come to someone's house and give them an estimate for tree removal. If only that was what Patch was!
I didn't think anyone would be reading my site with the massive power outage, but I kept working as hard as I always do. The number of people reading surprisingly surged as readers accessed it through their phones and iPads. That was a telling moment for Patch, considering many sites like mine had only launched the year before and we were still new.
I gained 100 new Facebook likes that week alone and got many Tweets, which showed the importance of social media in information sharing during that storm. I often wrote updates on Facebook before even posting a story. When I wasn't there to answer questions, people began answering them for each other on our Facebook page and in the comments.
Charging stations became a priority so that people could get information, whether at the Avon High School shelter or local businesses. I charged up at the shelter and sat with strangers who told me their stories, one even practicing his guitar as we talked. Avon Country Deli let me stay there for several hours as I wrote about U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy and Sen. Richard Blumenthal's visit to Avon and even served the customers free soup!
I checked out the high tech Duracell station where people could charge their computers and phones in a secure locker while they shopped, use WiFi, go on the computers and post useful information on a bulletin board. That's where I met Avon resident Marcia Duggan Wells and many other readers I had never seen before came up to me around town and asked if I was "the Patch girl."
I even found myself in the center of a big group hug at da Capo after the municipal election results were released when they found out I was the Avon Patch reporter who was providing them with storm updates. People still talk to me today about our coverage of the October storm. I don't think that the snowstorm has left people's minds on any single day in the past year. It brought a whole new meaning to a power outage.
Last year was a sad time for trick-or-treaters, so I can't even imagine how excited Avon kids must be for next Wednesday. The town had to ban trick-or-treating because downed trees and wires were a safety concern. Every town handled that differently. It begged the question, who is the authority on Halloween? The town? The police? The state?
However one exciting thing happened on Halloween. The power came back on along Route 44! I drove to check it out. The line at the Shell gas station in West Simsbury was out to the road and many of us started to feel like we had hope for seeing our own power return. By that Wednesday, I had mine back.
Initially, media was not allowed into the town's emergency operation center. But on my "day off" the Saturday after the storm, Lt. Kelly Walsh of the Avon Police Department called me asking if I was available.
"We need somebody down her who can Twitter," she said.
I got ready right away, fueled myself with Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate, and went into the conference room at the police department where many town officials and volunteers were also spending their Saturday off to deal with the storm. I was told that the town wanted to start a Twitter account, so they asked if I could help them.
I decided @TownofAvonCT was probably the easiest Twitter handle for people to find. After training Assistant Town Manager Steve Bartha on tweeting, hashtagging keywords and @messaging, I got to work building up followers by "following" Avon Twitter accounts I knew and spreading the word through Avon Patch social media. To get them started, I spent several hours tweeting 140 character messages with updates fed to me through the town officials. I retweeted everything on my Avon Patch twitter account.
Before dinner, I turned it over to Bartha to tweet you updates about the storm. The account gained more than 100 followers by the end of the week. The town hasn't used it much since the October storm, but I was happy to help when it was needed. It was a telling day because all of us there were working toward the same goal as a community.
My priority was giving readers the most up-to-date information. It always has been and that has not changed since last year.
While I am not asking for a repeat of last year (fingers crossed as we hear about a hurricane approaching), one thing I look back on fondly is the kindness I witnessed as people helped each other out.
It's easy to to remain strangers when you're locked into your schedule, on a computer and in your house.
But it's nice to see that when you step outside, snowstorm or not, that there is a community of friends and people you haven't met yet that will be there to support you.
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