Community Corner

Officials Say Much Work Remains, Praise Efforts So Far

The Local Emergency Planning Committee met Tuesday morning to discuss Hurricane Sandy's impact and what needs to be done today.

Wayland crews and officials will be out in town today documenting damage and working through the clean-up efforts with an eye toward re-opening schools and clearing emergency access to all locations in town.

Overall, they said that the liaison system established by Nstar seemed to have been effective and helpful as the issues they elevated as priorities -- such as the Wayland Town Building, which houses town servers -- were dealt with expeditiously on Monday.

Today, the work continues.

Find out what's happening in Waylandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“It's a matter of us monitoring and working closely with Pam, our liaison from Nstar, identifing priorities," Irving said.

Irving explained that when the Town Building lost power, it impacted town employees' ability to access information and email accounts housed on the server, making communication difficult. That access was restored when power was returned to Wayland Town Building at about 9:30 p.m. Monday.

Find out what's happening in Waylandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In addition to the obvious power issues throughout town, roads remain a problem. The Wayland Department of Public Works has crews working around the clock to clear debris from the roughly 20 roads that are blocked or impeded.

"DPW is going to be assessing the situation throughout the town," said Highway Director Stephen Kadlik. "We need to assess what we have in the light of day."

The roads that remain blocked, Kadlik said, involve trees wrapped in power lines, so the DPW must coordinate with Nstar to ensure it's safe for workers to remove the tree. The roads that could be safely cleared have largely been cleared.

Wayland Superintendent Paul Stein emphasized that his primary reason for closing schools Tuesday was the impassable nature of many roads.

“It sounded like the number of blocked roads was going to make transportation difficult," Stein said, adding that he received an email from a Boston parent thanking him for closing school today. "In addition, the tree that fell right by the entrance to Claypit – really worried me, particularly because of live wires that we didn’t know about at the time, but there is a live wire there. It would have been a major problem."

For a map of road blockages and closures, see the Hurricane Sandy Wayland Info Center.


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