With Cablevision Out, Communcation a Challenge

First Selectman Jeb Walker sent out the first robocall to New Canaan residents at 3:37 p.m. Saturday, just hours after the storm hit. In the days that followed, Walker and Jim Cole, deputy emergency management director, sent out more than a dozen calls updating the community on emergency services and recovery efforts. Cole said the messages have been the most effective way to get important information out, but only about a third of residents were getting them.

"Two thirds have not, because they're out of town, their power's off and their answering machine isn't working, or they have Cablevision," Cole said.

At the same time the wind was knocking down power lines and utility poles, Cablevision services, including Optimum Voice and Optimum Online, were cut off, even to some (like this reporter) who never lost power. That left a still unknown number of people without television, Internet, and—most importantly—phone.

Cablevision's corporate office was not open over the weekend. On Monday, the company's Media Relations Director, Sarah Chaikin, would only say in an e-mailed statement that, "Our network facilities are operational and performing well at the system level, we are experiencing isolated service disruptions in some areas as a result of local power outages."

Tuesday, Cablevision had still released no estimates of how many New Canaan customers were without service or when they might have it back.

While acknowledging that power was needed to run the telecomm's repeaters in town, Walker called Cablevision the "least cooperative" of the utilities while giving an update on the recovery efforts during the Board of Selectmen meeting Tuesday morning.

"CL&P is bad, Cablevision is worse."

As the town worked to get the power turned back on and the roads cleared, municipal officials was in contact with representatives from Connecticut Light & Power, the state Department of Transportation and the state Police, even AT&T, but they had not heard from Cablevision.

"The only one we didn't have contact info for, nor was there an attempt to reach out by was Cablevision," said Selectman Rob Mallozzi.

Without movement on the telecommunications front, municipal officials turned to other means of transmitting critical updates. On Sunday they'd set up an electronic message board at the New Canaan train station to let people know schools would be closed Monday.

"It's clearly not enough," David Jonker, emergency management director, said Tuesday.

So the town rented another electronic message board to put at the corner of Main and Cherry streets. The Information Technology Department hooked up several more phones to the Emergency Operation Center's information line, and the number was flashed on the two e-boards.

Tuesday afternoon, firefighters, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) volunteers and a group of high school lacrosse players hand distributed 2,000 flyers with essential information about where to find shelter and water, where to get a shower, and how to avoid being electrocuted by downed wires. Postmaster Nancy Cornelia drove another 4,000 flyers to Stamford so they would make it to mailboxes Wednesday (although by then much of the information was outdated).

The EOC used the Department of Public Works' plotter to print enormous notices with more updates that were posted Wednesday afternoon at the library, which had been serving as gathering place for storm refugees, and other popular spots around town.

Finally, the word was getting out. Kids wandering in shorts downtown on a flawless spring day started calling the EOC's info line from their cellphones to find out if schools would be open again Thursday (it was decided at 7 p.m. that they would be, with 90-minute delay).

As power began to come back on to big sections of town, Mallozzi finally made contact with Tim Adams, a top official from Cablevision.

"He can't tell me how many crews are out here... where they've been," Mallozzi said.

Cablevision continued to say that cable services usually return within a few hours of the lights coming back on. With power restored to most of Connecticut Light & Power's New Canaan customers late Wednesday, phones, television stations, and Internet connections did indeed start to work again.

But, "It's a little late now," Mallozzi said of Cablevision, "They're response was terrible."

If town officials had known the scope of the telecom shortage earlier, the selectman said, "We would've put more stuff in people's mailboxes."