HARTFORD, Conn — In Sunday's segment of "First and Finest," state officials offered new insight into Connecticut's response to the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias.
Brian Foley with the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection said the timing and staffing on the state side were well-planned and well-executed.
"What happened was they saw they this coming and were able to staff the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Transportation, obviously we had all-hands-on-deck and they were out clearing during the storm and after the storm. In fact, by Thursday night, Commissioner Giulietti, the commissioner of the Department of Transportation, and commissioner Rovella of Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection had almost 99.99 percent of the state highways cleared of trees and debris. But there is an asterisk there, that was all the debris where there weren't power lines involved. Now, there was still roads blocked Thursday night and Friday morning, but those were solely ones that were waiting for -- they need obviously Eversource or UI to come in and assist with shutting off power so they can remove the trees to open up those highways," said Foley.
Foley also addressed a growing issue across the region during this pandemic: so-called "pop-up parties."
"This is completely in the absence of something else to do, so COVID-related. There are no bars, there are no parties, there are no large social gatherings, so what's happening is what's being portrayed as pop-up car shows or pop-up parties, and they drive around in large groups of cars ... and large groups of people drive around from parking lot to parking lot," said Foley.
Last week, two people died after being shot during a gathering of about 100 to 200 people at a Manchester commuter lot off Buckland Street.
And then early Sunday morning, police responded to a shots fired report at the same location.
"Connecticut State Police are investigating that double homicide from a couple of weeks ago. They had a detail out of both marked and detectives last night. That detail ended, and shortly after it ended both with the State Police and Manchester Police, one of those parties came back to Manchester, showed up to those lots -- but it was much, much smaller numbers. Now it's being portrayed as a shots-fired incident. It was airsoft guns. It was not real firearms," said Foley.
Foley said there were no injuries in Sunday morning's incident. He also said CSP and local police departments will continue patrols to break up those pop-up parties across the state.