Milford's Fort Trumbull Devastated By Irene

Fort Trumbull this morning was guarded by the Milford Police Department. They were asking drivers not to park in areas that could hinder the ongoing cleanup work.

The streets were covered in Sand as far as the eye could see. Beyond this point is the Silver Sands State Park, of which was also guarded by the state DEP, and was closed to the public.

The devastation included flooding of all low lying structures on both sides of the street and as far as the marsh. The local homes and businesses had water lines as far up as two feet and damaged items were being dragged to the curb. residents were out in force working together to restore their neighborhoods.

The city of Milford was still experiencing wide spread power outages that are going into the second day. Many wires and trees are still down and the Utility companies are feverishly working to correct those outages.

The City of Milford has the Public Works out working long hours, cleaning up city streets and public property. The cost of the cleanup is expected to be substantial. The numbers have not been estimated as of yet but budget strains are to be expected.

The new Boardwalk at Silver Sands State Park is reportedly damaged. Onlookers who explored the area said that the Boardwalk has either been destroyed or buried under the sand making it hard to assess there is even a boardwalk there.

Further to the North Gulf Beach was covered in water, and low lying areas of Woodmont were also submerged in several feet of water. Photo (Left) depicts storm surge on Broadway, an area ordered evacuated by the city of Milford.

Fortunately many inland homes did not suffer substantial wind damage. Some residents boarded up their windows, while others taped asterisk style patterns on their plate glass. There are many reports of downed trees but very few reports of serious wind damage to those homes.

It is estimated that power will be restored in the next few days for all homes across Milford, and the cleanup efforts will be ongoing for several months.

Milford Beachfront Still Growing

This week ended with the tear down of 173 Seaside Ave. in Milford Connecticut. Out with old and in with the new breed of million dollar plus homes with views of the sound. A group of onlookers watched with awe as construction workers rocked the house and tore down walls to get this old home to drop. The plummet did not come easy, a small "dozer" was going full steam pulling with all its might as the wheels just spun and dug into the sand with no success.

Chains were then attached to the wood framing as courageous workers ran in and out of the unstable structure to get it to collapse. Finally the job was done and everyone in the neighborhood was relieved. But no one was more relieved than the neighbor just to the left of this home. His house just a few feet away was completely unscathed not even a scratch. This was a professional well done job.

Fort Trumbull Water Main To be replaced

The water main replacement at Fort Trumbull is well underway. This week city and state employees began the large project of laying the initial drainage pipe. The drainage pipe will be necessary because the 100 year old original water pipe is buried an estimated 16 feet underground.

The pipe featured in the picture above will be pumping out water as the workers dig deep and in sections to lay new pipe as they remove old pipe. This project also has to occur without interruption of service to the local area residents of which the workers on the street have said they are certain will not happen.

Most of the local residents, including the one small Italian owned business in the area said they are not particularly happy about the disruption in traffic and the noise commotion caused by the workers, but understand that the improvements are needed. All local residents at Fort Trumbull are in fact unanimous about one thing, and that is they will be excited when the project is complete and their street is back to normal.