Home Care In East Haven, CT

While tsunamis are extremely rare along Connecticut's shoreline, their smaller counterparts called meteotsunamis are much more common.

While tsunamis are triggered by undersea earthquakes, meteotsunamis are caused by meteorological events. A range of weather phenomena can trigger these waves, from powerful winter storms to summertime thunderstorms.

According to the National Weather Service, "meteotsunamis are driven by air-pressure disturbances often associated with fast-moving weather events such as severe thunderstorms, squalls and other storm fronts. The storm generates a wave that moves towards the shore, and is amplified by a shallow continental shelf and inlet, bay or other coastal feature."

New Haven harbor on Long Island Sound is a hotbed of meteotsunami activity due to factors like the shape of the harbor and the relatively shallow water depth. A 2019 study found that New Haven averages around 5 meteotsunamis per year, with 98 of them reported over an 18-year span. While most of them measure only a few inches in height, some of the larger meteotsunamis can reach a foot or more above the typical tide level. Other hotbeds of similar meteotsunami activity along the East Coast are Providence, Rhode Island, and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Often, the meteotsunami itself isn't particularly dangerous, but the weather that causes it is.

On May 15, 2018, as powerful severe weather ripped across Connecticut, a meteotsunami in New Haven caused a surge of nearly a foot in a matter of minutes. Just two years later on Aug. 27, 2020, a severe wind event caused the pressure to rise by 4 millibars in less than 20 minutes, once again pushing the water level in New Haven to rise by two feet in a short time.

To avoid becoming stranded in a storm (or its subsequent waves), boaters on Long Island Sound should always check the latest weather forecast before heading out on the water.

Dan Amarante is a meteorologist with Hearst Connecticut Media. He has covered major storms both locally in Connecticut and nationwide in his career, which includes more than a decade as a TV meteorologist in Connecticut. He reported live on TV during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and the historic Northeast blizzard of 2013, experienced the eye of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, and covered the aftermath of numerous tornadoes. When he’s not forecasting, Dan enjoys spending time with his family, watching baseball, and keeping up with the latest space news.

NEW HAVEN — About 1,000 people gathered for a rally for workers’ rights on Tuesday evening at Scantlebury Park, with the state’s high cost of living looming as one of the top issues.

The event was sponsored by the UNITE HERE union and the New Haven Rising community organization, and its speakers included a number of union leaders. Among the UNITE HERE units well-represented at the rally was Local 217, which has more than 1,000 members who work in food services at Central, Southern, Eastern and Western Connecticut State universities; Fairfield University; the University of Hartford; Trinity College; and a number of corporate offices across the state. The contracts for all of those Local 217 members expire this year.

“We hear stories of workers who have to work a second or third job to make ends meet. We hear of parents who used to be able to put food on the table after 40 hours, (and) now have to take hour after hour of overtime away from their families, just to pay the rent,” Josh Stanley, secretary-treasurer of Local 217, told the crowd, which braved temperatures of nearly 100 degrees. “And we hear stories of workers who want to work 40 hours, but have had their jobs cut, so now they can only get 35 or 30 (hours), and they are scrambling to pay the rent. We’re here to say, enough is enough.”

Stephan Alderman, Local 217 vice president and one of the college food-services workers represented by the union, spoke of the difficulty of supporting his family.

“One job should be enough,” Alderman said. “But as a single father of four, with seven grandchildren, I find it increasingly hard to make ends meet. For the first time in my life, I had to fight for energy assistance because of the failing economy. I believe that everyone, union and non-union alike, should have living wages and great health insurance for them and their family, and that everyone should retire with dignity and grace.”

Bernadette Alicea, a clinical secretary at Yale and a member of UNITE HERE’s Local 34, described a similar experience.

“I am struggling to keep up with the rising cost of inflation,” Alicea said. “Currently, I live with my mother and grandchildren in a two-bedroom in New Haven. I am the essential breadwinner for my family, but I am robbing Peter to pay Paul. Why should I have to make the decision on which bill is more important to pay every week? I am constantly worrying about having enough food to feed my family. In addition, I have been notified that my rent will be increased by $100, which means I’ll be paying New York prices on a New Haven budget.”

Depleted federal funding for higher education has heightened Yale employees’ unease, said Adam Waters, president of UNITE HERE’s Local 33, which represents graduate researchers and teachers.

“This has been a challenging year for school workers like me and my colleagues. The Trump administration has launched a full-scale attack on education at all levels,” Waters said. “At universities, the government has cut and frozen funding, blocking research in critical areas like vaccine development and gender-affirming care. These cuts put our jobs at risk, and they also derail projects that can save lives. Meanwhile, immigration-enforcement actions targeting students and academic workers at campuses across the country, and here in New Haven, have created a climate of fear, uncertainty and self-censorship on our campus.”

Teachers in the New Haven school district are also under pressure — a predicament exacerbated by deep inequality in the city and across the state, said Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers.

“We’ve got one Connecticut where students every year benefit from the stability that comes with fairly paid teachers, low class sizes, fantastic extracurriculars, well-maintained schools and all the electives and opportunities you can imagine,” Blatteau said. “Then we’ve got the other Connecticut, right here in our city, where year after year we endure the trauma of mass-layoff threats, involuntary transfers, school closures, hot and moldy classrooms, too many vacancies and brilliant, dedicated teachers and paraeducators who are not paid fairly for their work.”

The city has called it both a health risk and an eye sore for its residents.

Now, New Haven officials have a proposal to acquire the beleaguered former English Station power plant property, and “create a new waterfront park and outdoor public pool in its place.”

A spokesman for New Haven said in an email that Mayor Justin Elicker, along with city and state leaders, propose to “acquire” the former power plant property, and “highlight the ‘Mill River: Imagine Next’ initiative.”

The city proposal would “transform the long abandoned, dilapidated, and contaminated industrial site that has been chained off from the community for decades into a new, safe, clean, and accessible public park and community asset that includes public outdoor pools, playgrounds, sports courts, walking and biking trails, and native plant gardens along the 3,000-foot waterfront property that will help drive inclusive economic growth, new housing and development, and chart a new future for the Mill River district,” the city spokesman said Monday.

Elicker said, also in the email, that “after bearing the costs of industrial pollution and blight from the English Station power plant for decades, our community deserves a true treasure in its place. By replacing it with a new waterfront public park and recreation area, we will transform this site into an amazing public asset that will benefit our residents, improve our environment, and strengthen our community for generations to come.”

“This proposal represents a commitment to environmental justice for our residents and city that is long overdue — and it has the ability to help catalyze new investment, new housing and development, and a new future for the entire Mill River district. The time has come to write a new chapter for Ball Island, and I believe that new chapter is Mill River Park.”

Further, according to the spokesman, New Haven Monday, began the process “to advance the Mill River Park proposal and sent a letter of interest to each of the current property owners — Paramount View Millennium, LLC and Haven River Properties, LLC – as the City looks to enter into good faith negotiations to acquire the property.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong in 2024 filed a lawsuit accusing United Illuminating of failing to live up to its agreements to clean up the deteriorating English Station power plant contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls that has sat empty for decades in the middle of the river.

UI and its then owner agreed in 2015 to spend $30 million to clean up the polluted New Haven power plant, which they said then would take three years. Tong in January 2024 said UI, now owned by Avangrid, failed to honor any of its agreements and had only removed one building on Ball Island in the Mill River. United Illuminating does not own the site;

In February this year, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection said, after a query by the Hartford Courant, that “As of now, United Illuminating has not fully complied with the requirements set out in the 2015 Partial Consent Order.

An email seeking comment was sent to Tong’s office.

Sarah Wall Fliotsos, a spokesperson for UI, said Monday, “While UI has not owned English Station since the early 2000s, we are fully committed to working within the bounds of the Partial Consent Order signed by state officials to remediate the English Station site to the heavy-industrial standard that was agreed to in 2016.

“While the Mill River Park envisioned by Mayor Elicker would require remediation far beyond this standard, alternate funding mechanisms could help to bring this vision to life, similar to how Connecticut provided support to demolish a former power plant in Bridgeport owned by an out-of-state company. We are always ready to work with state and local officials to support their vision for the site,” she said.

In February, Fliotsos had pushed back against the state claims.

“From the signing of the Partial Consent Order in 2016, DEEP did not raise any concerns with UI’s compliance with the agreement to clean up English Station, a site UI has not owned for more than 30 years, until Attorney General Tong filed a surprise lawsuit against us,” Fliotsos said at the time.

“These and other Connecticut policymakers are intent on holding UI to a standard of cleanup that does not exist in the PCO, which was agreed on by all parties in 2016. Contrary to their statements and positions, over the past nine years, we have conducted extensive investigations and cleanup activities as required by the PCO, costing our company tens of millions of dollars,” Fliotsos said in February. “The fact that DEEP, Attorney General Tong and others are now dissatisfied with those terms does not now give them the right to disregard the PCO and attempt to bend it to their will. With this matter pending in litigation in state court, we look forward to a clear path forward on this important issue.”

An email seeking comment also was sent to DEEP.

Tong has said that the buildings on the island themselves are dangerous, have been vandalized and unauthorized people have been seen on the property.

Tong said Monday, “we are pleased to hear the City of New Haven is taking an active role toward turning the English Station property to productive use for the community. This cleanup is long overdue, and my office will continue to pursue all appropriate action to hold United Illuminating accountable.”

The city also noted, the creation of the park is “predicated upon the timely and responsible cleanup and remediation of the site by United Illuminating”, which is being enforced by the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. It said the state Superior Court upheld the $2 million annual penalty levied by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority against UI for the company’s “ongoing failure to remediate contamination at the site.”

The city statement on the new plan noted the former power plant “has been deactivated since 1992 and sits on Ball Island in the middle of the Mill River.” The entrance is on Grand Avenue.

On Monday, the city “will share its vision to transform the long abandoned, dilapidated, and contaminated eyesore into a safe, clean, and beautiful 8.6-acre waterfront park and destination that will help drive inclusive economic growth and a new future for the Mill River district,” the statement said.

English Station operated as a coal and oil-fired power plant for United Illuminating from 1929 until it was deactivated in 1992, leaving behind a site extensively contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, a known carcinogen, heavy metals, and other contaminants, official have said many times.

EAST HAVEN—With the recent town approval to re-subdivide 990 Foxon Road to create four new lots, a plan for fast food and other businesses appears headed for construction in the coming months.

The project, which was originally proposed in late 2023, was approved at a special meeting of the East Haven Planning & Zoning Commission earlier this month.

The redevelopment project will take place at the former site of the Seasons restaurant, banquet and catering facility.

Seasons, which closed in 2022, opened as a restaurant in 1959, according to its website. James Esposito took over the business from his parents in 1980 and transformed it into a venue that hosted weddings, brunches, holiday parties and other private events, according to the website. Seasons also offered catering services.

Ed Sabatino, assistant director of administration and management for the town of East Haven said Monday that the project is much like the one originally proposed. It will include a Starbucks, Chipotle, Five Guys and Jersey Mike's, Sabatino said.

There are expected to be about 120 parking spaces

Sabatino said that preliminary work on demolition, including removing electrical, creating necessary abatements and tearing down the venue and house on the site, has begun.

Then, Sabatino said, construction will begin, likely in the fall.

"The current building is set to be demolished in the coming weeks, making way for a welcome addition to East Haven’s business landscape. Like any construction project, there are many factors, such as permitting, supply chains, weather, and labor, that can affect the timeline," Sabatino said, "While we expect construction to begin shortly after demolition, a project of this size could take up to a year to complete, we’ll continue working closely with the developers to keep things moving as smoothly and efficiently as possible.”

On Wednesday, the East Shore District Health Department confirmed the mosquitoes that tested positive for the virus were collected July 21 near Kenneth Street.

EAST HAVEN, Connecticut — Multiple mosquitoes in East Haven were recently found to be carrying West Nile Virus, according to a report Wednesday from the East Shore District Health Department.

The mosquitoes that tested positive for West Nile Virus were collected on July 21 near Kenneth Street.

According to the health department, the species of mosquito carrying the virus can be found in a wide range of places, especially where standing water exists.

The warm weather, high humidity and active rainfall have created ideal conditions for West Nile Virus to spread.

To date there have not been any human cases of West Nile Virus in Connecticut, but there were 13 last year and seven in 2023.

As the dog days of summer approach, the threat becomes more prevalent. People are most vulnerable to West Nile Virus in August and September, the health department says.

Given that mosquitoes will be around for several more months, it is important to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites.

The health department offered a variety of tips, including minimizing time spent outdoors around dusk and dawn and making sure door and window screens fit tightly and are in good repair.

It is also recommended to wear shoes, socks, long pants and a long-sleeved shirt when and where mosquitoes are most active. Furthermore, one should use mosquito netting when sleeping and protect small babies when outdoors.

Considering the use of mosquito repellent containing DEET when outdoors is also encouraged.

The health district emphasizes that residents should eliminate stagnant water in and around their properties, as they attract hoards of mosquitoes.

According to the health department, local mosquitoes are collected for testing approximately every 10 days.

The towns of Branford, East Haven and North Branford – which the health department serves – have funded a mosquito larvicide program that includes the application of larvicide to mosquito breeding areas, and storm watcher catch basin larvicide treatments.

The health department administers the program locally. It includes mosquito and human surveillance and aggressive elimination of mosquito breading conditions.

More information can be found on the health department’s website.

Dalton Zbierski is a digital content producer and writer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at [email protected].

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