A storm in June that lasted just a few minutes cost the town $100,000 in damage, First Selectman Rudy Marconi told the Board of Selectmen Aug. 5.
The ferocious line of thunderstorms, which tore up trees in Ridgefield with wind gusts up to 95 miles per hour, left weeks of cleanup work in its wake.
The town needed to get a handle on the total amount of damage to close out its books for the year. The money to pay for the tree damage is coming from the $1.3-million general fund surplus.
“We try to close the year out by the end of August because there are always outstanding invoices out there that get charged by the previous fiscal year,” Marconi said before the meeting, in an interview about the storm damage. “We want to be sure everything that occurred in that fiscal year gets charged to that fiscal year.”
Marconi had declared a state of emergency during the storm but the town is not eligible to collect any reimbursement from federal or state sources as it had done in past storms.
The storm closed many local roads and knocked out power for more than half the Eversource customers in Ridgefield.
Many homeowners were left to cleaning up their tree damage at their own expense.
Most of the money went to taking down trees, clearing them from roads and disposing of them, said Kevin Redmond, the town’s controller. Only about $3,000 was spent on highway department overtime.
Police overtime was minimal and there was no Fire overtime, Redmond said.
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