City Prepares For Coming Storm

Update

See our full story on the meeting HERE.

Original Story, 1 p.m. Friday

City department heads will be meeting at 2 p.m. Friday to coordinate preparations for the city's response to.

The group will discuss plans for opening an emergency operations center in the Meriden Police Department.

According to officials, city departments have been preparing for the storm for much of the week.

Workers with the Public Utilities division have been preparing the city's water treatment plants, checking generators and gassing up vehicles, according to director David Lohman. He said a loss of power to the city because of the storm would likely not affect water flow for residents, unless they have a private well that runs off electricty.

"We don’t anticipate any change with our water supply, barring water main breaks or a catastrophic incident," Lohman said.

The department has employees on call for Sunday. Lohman said staff will be out monitoring dams.

Meriden's Emergency Management Director David Bowen said residents should seriously prepare for the storm – getting enough items to care for themselves for 72 hours. 

Bowen said to check FEMA's emergency preparation website at www.ready.gov for a full list of suggestions, but made a few suggestions for residents:

• get bottles of water
• get bags of ice and put in a cooler
• be careful with candles
• don't run a generator inside

"It's no different than camping," Bowen said, of the preparations.