With so many ways, surely you can Be Part of the Story during our Barnes and Noble events.
With so many ways, surely you can Be Part of the Story during our Barnes and Noble events.
Before you head out this morning, consult Virginia Department of Transportation's Road Conditions website, VA511, at http://www.511virginia.org/ Many roads west of Crozet are snow and ice covered. By yesterday evening, Wintergreen was already reporting six inches of snow.
Latest county news about this storm is posted at www.communityemergency.org.
As of 5:00 AM October 30, 2012, it reports there are not any major roadways in the region that are currently blocked due to downed trees or power lines.There are 5,471 homes without electricity in our area.
2-1-1 Virginia is serving as the public inquiry number for Virginia residents.
5-1-1 is to be used for the latest in road conditions. Only call 9-1-1 in a true emergency.
#77 on a cell phone to report a traffic crash or traffic emergency
Residents should call their locality’s non-emergency number for updated storm-related and shelter information.
Only call 9-1-1 in a true emergency.
There are two critical points to mention.
1. First, please keep safety paramount in your mind. Always assume that any downed wire and anything it is in contact with is energized. Do not approach it. Report downed power lines and power outages to Dominion at 1-866-DOM-HELP (1-866-366-4357). Also exercise care in the use of portable generators. Dominion’s web site has helpful tips on safe use of portable generators: https://www.dom.com/about/safety/portable-electric-generator-safety-tips.jsp. As part of our commitment to safety, Dominion crews will only be in the field restoring power while it is safe for them to do so. At the height of the storm, safety concerns may limit our restoration activities.
2. Second, I wanted to review the general process that we use in all large-scale restoration efforts. In addition to focusing on public safety issues, we will initially target restoration of our transmission lines, the largest power lines that carry the power across our system to several substations. This effort will restore the most possible customers in the shortest time and it is critical to allowing us to focus on restoring the rest of our system.
Richmond, Va. – As Virginians experience power outages related to Hurricane Sandy, many people will begin using gas-powered appliances and charcoal or gas grills for electricity and cooking. Carbon monoxide exposure from these sources can be deadly.
The Virginia Department of Health reminds people to take precautions when using alternate sources of power. Carbon monoxide exposure is a silent killer and the number of carbon monoxide poisoning cases and fatalities typically increases following severe weather events.
Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odorless, tasteless gas and is highly poisonous. Depending on the level of exposure, carbon monoxide may cause:
VDH recommends the following precautions to help prevent carbon monoxide poisoning:
The CDC has prepared many card-sized carbon monoxide resources that can be printed and placed on generators and other emergency response sources of carbon monoxide. These resources are available at www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/co-materials.asp.
For more information about how to protect yourself and your family before, during and after natural disasters, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov or the Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s Web site at www.vaemergency.gov.
Subject: HURRICANE SANDY REGIONAL PUBLIC INFORMATION UPDATE
At 10:30 am, the Regional EOC participated in a conference call featuring updates from the National Weather Service and Virginia Department of Emergency Management:
(From Ann Mallek).
For all local issues related to this emergency, please contact our Local Emergency Managers,
Kirby Felts is our emergency services manager in Albemarle. kfelts@albemarle.org (434-971-1263)
This link will take you to a list of local emergency managers and contact information for each
https://lemd.vdem.virginia.gov/Public/Default.aspx
The governor declared a state of emergency Friday, Oct. 26, to help quickly get supplies, equipment and staff to those who need it.
Because of the uncertainity surrounding the potential impacts of Hurricane Sandy, the Monday, October 29 Crozet Town Hall meeting is postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date.
What should residents be doing now?
The storm will have a strong wind impact. The eastern third of Virginia could experience sustained tropical storm force winds (39-73 mph) for more than 48 hours. Flooding in low-lying coastal areas is expected. Downed trees and extensive power outages are likely. Residents in western and southwestern Virginia could experience high wind gusts and snowfall. All areas will have colder temperatures.
Stay tuned to local TV and radio stations for instructions and information. Make sure your family members, friends and neighbors are prepared for an extended weather event. Jim Duncan at realcrozetva.com, NBC29 and other local stations will be using Twitter and Facebook to push information as it develops.
Have flashlights and extra batteries, a battery-powered and/or hand-crank radio and extra batteries in case power goes out. Have food that does not need refrigeration and one gallon of water per person per day. Other important items are a first aid kit and medications, blankets and other supplies (www.ReadyVirginia.gov).
Traffic Information
From Dominion Virginia Power.
In our continuing effort to keep you informed, I wanted to share with you some additional information about Dominion’s planned response to Hurricane Sandy. Attached is a press release with further details.
As I have communicated to you previously, we expect significant impacts from this storm over a protracted period of time as the storm lingers over our service territory. Safety of the public and our crews is our top priority. As always, we will work to restore service even during the storm, but the nature of this event may mean we will not be able to begin most of our response in the field until the storm itself has passed.
It is important for customers to remember that we do not know if their power is out unless they call us to report the outage. When an outage occurs, customers should call 1-866-DOM-HELP (1-866-366-4357) to report an outage. The same holds true when they see a public safety situation, such as a downed power line. Customers should stay a safe distance away and report the situation as soon as safely possible.
Once the restoration begins, we will follow the same general process we use in all large-scale restoration efforts. In addition to focusing on public safety issues, we will initially target restoration of our transmission lines, the largest power lines that carry the power across our system to several substations. This effort will restore the most possible customers in the shortest time and it is critical to allowing us to focus on restoring the rest of our system. Once our transmission system is restored, we focus on our substations, which serve multiple circuits, whether whole communities or major parts of larger communities. Once these two steps in restoring the critical building blocks of our system are completed, we can begin restoring critical facilities such as 911 centers, water treatment facilities, public safety facilities, and certain health care facilities. Given the ongoing election, we will also be focusing at this stage on restoring sites for in-person, absentee voting.
After critical facilities, we then prioritize the main circuits, which bring power from substations to individual communities or industries. Only after completing these four steps (transmission lines, substations, critical facilities, and main circuits) do we begin focusing on individual neighborhoods. That said, many residential customers will find that their power is restored as a result of the work on transmission lines, substations, critical facilities, and main lines. However, it is important that all of our customers prepare for the potential for prolonged loss of power.
For more information, here is a link to the answers to frequently asked questions about power restoration on our web site (dom.com): https://www.dom.com/storm-center/storm-and-restoration-faqs.jsp
All of us at Dominion understand the frustration and inconvenience that power outages bring our customers. We will be working around the clock until all of our customers are restored. We urge you and all our customers to keep safety as your paramount concern during both the storm itself and the ensuring restoration. For example, please treat all downed power lines and anything touching them as if they are energized.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or any member of our government affairs team.
Thanks,
-Scott
F. Scott Reed
—————————————-
From: F Scott Reed (Services – 1)
Friday, October 26, 2012
Since writing earlier today, there have been slight modifications to our storm prediction, but the anticipated impact to our customers has not changed. Simply put, this is a very dangerous storm and we anticipate Hurricane Sandy causing significant state-wide damage to our electric distribution system. Accordingly, we are running radio ads and using other communication channels to urge our customers to prepare for the storm and to take steps to remain safe afterwards. I would like to briefly summarize these steps for you and urge you to share this information with your constituents.
Before the storm, assemble critical emergency supplies such as water, flashlights, radios, extra batteries, medicine, cash, and other critical items in an emergency kit. Have a plan for how you and your family will remain safe during the storm itself, which may well be protracted, how you will evacuate if necessary, and where you will go. It is further a good idea to fuel your automobiles.
If power is interrupted, call Dominion at 1-866-DOM-HELP (1-866-366-4357) to report the outage. If you prefer, you may also report the outage through our web site (www.dom.com). Additionally, if your smart phone is registered as your primary phone number for your account, you may report an outage on that device (also www.dom.com). To assist you in updating your primary phone number in our records, we have established a dedicated line at 1-800-222-0401 that will allow you to register your preferred phone number.
After the storm, please keep safety as your top priority.
· Treat all fallen wires and anything touching them as though they are energized and stay away from them. Report the fallen wire to Dominion at 1-866-DOM-HELP.
· Follow safe operating procedures for generators. For example, never operate a generator inside your home or in any enclosed space (such as a garage). Do not hook them directly into your electrical system; instead plug directly into the generator with properly-sized extension cords.
I need to emphasize that this may well be a very significant outage with a protracted time required to restore power. With this in mind, we have already identified more than 2,000 additional personnel to assist our Dominion team in the restoration effort. As always, our team will be working around the clock until power is restored to every customer.
Whether you're coming to or from the Crozet Park for the Crozet Trails Day tree planting events stop by the MudHouse and be the first of your friends to buy the new Build Crozet Library special blend of coffee that is available for sale now. The MudHouse is now roasting their own beans and they've partnered with the Build Crozet Library fundraising committee to create this special blend.
Sit back, taste the coffee, have some of Margot's incredible baked goods (she just won the Cville PieFest),
register a child for the caramel apple workshop, buy some books from Over the Moon Bookstore,
enjoy music performed by local musicians, and buy a couple of bags of coffee beans to take home.
Every pound of Build Crozet Library coffee beans sold will generate a $2 donation toward the books, computers, chairs, and everything else we need to purchase for the new Crozet library. Just think. If everyone on this distribution list sent this to five other people, and every one of those people ran down to Mudhouse and bought a pound of coffee this week, the good folk at Mudhouse would be sending a thousand dollar
check to the Build Crozet Library fund! So help celebrate this great news.
Come out and join us for a party at Crozet MudHouse this Sunday, October 21st, 12 – 4 pm.
The event is sponsored by the Batesville Ruritans. Batesville residents and friends have been doing this since 1975. It's a classic fall event – cutting, peeling, stirring, apples along with story-telling, pancakes, music. It all starts this morning, Saturday, October 20, at 10AM in the Page's field across from the Batesville Post Office. The full schedule is online
http://www.batesvilleva.org/Batesville_Community/A_B_Schedule.html
You can stop by the Batesville Post Office to sign-up for a shift to help stir and tend the fire tonight.
If you can't help, then plan to stop by after 2PM tomorrow, Sunday, to buy some of their apple butter!
The third annual Crozet Trais Day this Sunday, October 21st includes a 5K race, a kid's fun run, and a community tree-planting event at the Claudius Crozet Park. There's still time to register for the 5k race by coming in-person registration (and packet pick-up)
today Saturday, Oct. 20th at Trailside Coffee (10:30-11:30am) OR on Sunday morning between 7 and 8am (along with packet pick-up), but registration ends at 8am in order to compile the registration information before the 8:30am race. The 5K race starts and ends at Trailside Coffee in Old Trail.
After the 5k race is the tree planting event at Claudius Crozet Park between 10AM and 2PM. The aim is to highlight some of the new trails in Crozet and help plant some trees in Crozet Park to replace ones damaged by June's derecho. There will be food, live music, informational booths, trail tours and an instructional session on tree care and pruning. Bring your family and come help make Crozet Park even more welcoming and attractive. Additional details are at the Crozet Trails Crew website:
http://crozettrailscrew.org/crozet-trails-day/
Do you like Pie? Do you like helping people? Do you like fun? Of course you do!
Pie Fest is a celebration of pie, with benefits going to support the efforts of PACEM to find shelter for the homeless in our community.
If you are a pie baker, you can still enter a pie in the Best Pie Contest until MIDNIGHT tonight, October 11, 2012
Doesn't have to be an original recipe… just delicious! http://cvillepiefest.com/register-your-pie/
If you are a pie eater, you can come and purchase pie "tastes" to get a sampling of the delicious baking efforts of others.
There's also a silent auction for various goodies.
So come on out! Because… well, it's pie. Do you need another reason?
In particular, they are looking for volunteers to help at the Information tent and the wine tent.
By volunteering you get free admission to the event! Students can receive community service hours.
If you would like to help, follow this link to their Sign-Up Genius webpage:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094DACAF2CA46-crozet2/1495760
It tells you what's expected and when and for how long you are volunteering for.
Thanks in advance for helping.
Tomorrow, Friday, September 28 at 7:00 PM, the Field School has its annual Blue and Silver Dinner and they hope you will consider joining them at the Field School Auditorium, 1408 Crozet Avenue.
The dinner, a mediterranean feast, is catered by the Field School's chef, Patrick Critzer, with cocktails at 7PM and dinner at 8PM, with music to follow by the incredible Sarah White and the Pearls.
The cost is $60 per person and includes dinner, wine, and beer. Dress is casual.
This event is one of the Field School's major school fundraisers and they hope it becomes one that folks in Crozet attend.
For tickets, call the school at 434-823-4353, or email Tracy@FieldSchoolcv.net
Due to the progress of the new Crozet Library construction, Crozet residents should be aware of an upcoming traffic interruption beginning Monday, August 27, 2012. Beginning on Monday, August 27, one lane of Crozet Avenue will be closed at a time between Jarman’s Gap Road and Library Avenue to accommodate installation of a water line and stormwater sewer beneath the roadway. Drivers should expect delays in this area between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Water and sewer services should not be impacted. Preparatory work for the water line construction will begin next week.
The storm sewer work will resume on September 20 or so, and take about another week (until 9/28) to complete. The work is taking much longer than predicted because a fiber line was discovered that was not marked and not shown on plans, so work has to proceed slowly to not damage the line.
Questions or concerns, Please contact Ms. Lee Catlin
Assistant to the County Executive for Community and Business Partnerships
(434)296-5841, ext. 3425, office