Milford Gets Updated Alert System

The City of Milford has implemented a state-of-the-art citywide notification system to alert citizens about emergencies and other community news. The Milford Alerts notification system, operated in partnership with Everbridge, enables the City to provide essential information quickly and for a variety of situations, such as severe weather, fires, floods, unexpected road closures, or evacuation of buildings or neighborhoods.

These notifications can be sent to a variety of devices such as home phone, work phone, cell phone, text messaging devices, e-mail and more. You choose what devices you are contacted on and in what order you would like to be contacted.

In addition to traditional emergency alerts, the system also allows you to sign up to receive a variety of other important community alerts and informational bulletins that interest you. For more information about the new Milford Alerts system, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions Page.

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Meet Milfords Most Menacing Object

Sadly, the utility pole in Milford is becoming the towns most menacing object. Just in the last week, a truck coming off exit 40 struck one destroying the rig, disrupting power to a major commercial area and putting the lives of fire fighters in jeopardy.

No sooner than that accident two more teens lost their life when their Honda struck a utility pole on Gulf Street, one year earlier Jill Copperwait lost her life to a pole on New Haven Ave. and three other teens lost their life when their car struck a utility pole at the mall. The cars involved, One Subaru, a Nissan, and a Honda all foreign medium sized cars.

The state legislature adopted new teen driving laws in July of 2008 in an effort to make the right of passage a safer one. The laws are described as the "MOST COMPREHENSIVE OVERHAUL IN 35 YEARS."

However, for some the relief this program was supposed to deliver fell short because their kids obtained their drivers licences prior to the benefits yielded by it. In all recent cases involving automotive fatalities the drivers obtained their Drivers Licences under the old rules.

Many residents are are awaiting the new data to come in for those kids who obtained their drivers licence under the new state mandates and motor vehicle regulations. We sincerely hope that tragic accidents like the one we experienced over the last several years are dramatically reduced.

As Milford anxiously awaits these "comprehensive overhauls" the towns kids, parents, relatives and loved ones will remain in mourning. All of us at the MDB offer our prayers and condolences to every family who endured these many painful losses.

Milford Firefighters Engage In A Safety Drill

In full gear on a hot day, Firefighter Anthony Vitale crawled through a narrow opening between wall studs and across a slab of plywood in a vacant motel room.

Suddenly, the plywood gave way, spilling Vitale onto his side on the floor.

Luckily, for Vitale, it was not the real thing. It was a simulation of what it would feel like if the floor of a burning building collapsed beneath him, part of a department-wide training exercise Thursday morning in the vacant, single-story motel rooms behind the Howard Johnson Hotel on Boston Post Road.

The "Mayday Training" was designed to prepare city firefighters how to react if trapped while battling a fire, whether they're dropped into a basement, caught in an attic with nowhere to go, or buried under a fallen ceiling, said Capt. Christopher Zak, training officer and fire spokesman.

Thursday marked the first of three phases, which will include training other firefighters how to rescue a comrade in trouble, as well as to prepare commanding officers and dispatchers how to do their parts in orchestrating a "Mayday" response, said Assistant Chief Robert Healey.

"The idea is to save lives, and that's what we're looking at," he said, adding that department officials are grateful to hotel management for allowing the training, which even brought dispatchers to the scene.

Vitale said he and other firefighters were rotated through different challenges during the roughly three-hour training, "so it's kind of a surprise when you get in there."

"Any time you train, if you can get the conditions as close to what we would see in the field, it's helpful," he said. "You never plan on falling through a floor. You think you have it -- you have a plan -- and then there's a curveball. We train for the curveballs, essentially. Train for the worst, hope for the best."

Firefighters have been known to delay calls for help and try to get out of a sticky situation on their own to avoid being the brunt of teasing the next day, Zak said.

He'd like to see protocols so clearly defined that there's no room for personal interpretation, hence drills on how to request help -- a firefighter in trouble should call "Mayday" and offer location, unit, surrounding conditions, actions taken and those needed -- and how to give it.

"We're trying to put them in a situation where they react automatically," he said. "Like muscle memory." The field training was followed by classroom training later in the day, he added.

The last time a Milford firefighter lost contact and got disoriented in a building was Sept. 9, 1989, when a massive inferno consumed Sante's Manor banquet hall on Naugatuck Avenue. The lost man called for help, and firefighters came through the back of the building and found him quickly, Zak said.

The last time a floor collapsed under city firefighters was during last December's fatal Brookdale Avenue fire. The burning house didn't have a full basement in that spot, so firefighters fell only about three feet, he said.


ORIGINAL STORY