First Selectman: Orange Has Best Crews Around

As the blizzard started to kick it up a notch this afternoon, Orange First Selectman Jim Zeoli was staying in constant contact with emergency officials.

Moments after getting off the phone with Police Chief Robert Gagne, Zeoli discussed what steps the town was taking during the storm.

• Town Hall and the library and all town services aside from those for emergencies, were being closed at 2 p.m.
• All goings on at the community center have been cancelled through Saturday.

Police, fire and emergency operations coordinators met this morning to assess the latest forecast models and determine what measures would be necessary locally. They are treating this as a pretty routine snow storm event and, therefore, unless power outages hit and trees start falling, there are no plans to open a shelter at this point, Zeoli said.

"It looks like the weather is getting more severe, as predicted," he said just before 2 p.m. "It looks like we will be leaving by, I guess, 2 o'clock."

Zeoli said the police chief reported to him that, on the whole, things were not looking that bad out there. "There are some problems out there," he did note.

"We have a really, really good staff of people in all of our police, our volunteer fire department and public works," Zeoli said. "They all know their jobs and their positions and they do them well."

"You can count on them."