by Thomas Breen
Elicker, Lamont, State Rep. Al Paolillo Jr., and State Sen. Martin Looney inside the carousel building.
It will take “millions” of dollars to rebuild portions of Lighthouse Point Park after last week’s high-wind storm toppled dozens of trees and caused serious damage to the historic carousel building.
When might the park reopen to the public? TBD, though the city hopes to reopen it in “phases.” Whether the state can help obtain federal reimbursement remains an open question.
Mayor Justin Elicker, Gov. Ned Lamont, and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn delivered those updates Tuesday afternoon as they toured the Morris Cove waterfront park alongside a phalanx of government officials and TV news cameras.
They took a look at the 1906-built carousel building, which has now been stabilized with the help of “shoring towers” and concrete blocks, according to Zinn. The building — a popular venue for weddings and other special events — “lost its support system” thanks to last Thursday morning’s storm, which brought winds as high as 103 miles per hour. The building is now secure enough to not blow away during the next thunderstorm, Zinn said, but there’s still a far way to go before it can be safely occupied by people again.
“Thankfully, the carousel wasn’t significantly damaged,” Elicker said, and the hand-carved wooden “flying horses” have since been removed from the building — though the carousel itself and many of its other aesthetic fixtures remain, albeit under the cover of some city-installed rain protection.
Elicker also provided a new, higher count of how many trees were damaged by the storm: 96 were either toppled or need to be removed, and another 85 will require “significant pruning.”
“We’re talking about millions of dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars, to rebuild,” Elicker said. He said the city’s Engineering Department is “starting to evaluate what are the options to rebuild,” given the historic nature of the carousel building as well as its sitting in a flood plain.
What is the amount of money the city and the state are hoping to get from the federal government to help with the rebuild? New Haven State Rep. and Appropriations Committee Chair Toni Walker asked.
“It’s an open question,” Elicker replied.
In order to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), he said, the state has to spend at least $6.9 million in repairs. “We’re just evaluating what’s eligible and seeing if we can hit that threshold,” Elicker said. Lamont said that number should be “countywide,” not just specific to New Haven.
Does the city have an initial estimate of how many millions of dollars it might cost to rebuild the affected areas of the park? “We don’t have an initial estimate,” Elicker said.
How might the state support New Haven, financially or otherwise, as the city rebuilds and reopens Lighthouse?
“First we’ve got to assess the total damages,” Lamont replied, and “see if we can get to that $6.9 million threshold.” Then the state will need to turn to Washington, D.C. to “see what FEMA can do,” and then see if the state needs to “fill in” with any other help.
What work still needs to be done before the park can be reopened? And when might the public be allowed back in?
Elicker stressed that, while the city was “unlucky about what happened, we’re really lucky” that no one was hurt.
Elicker said the carousel building needs to be secured; the city needs to make sure that there are no more bits of glass strewn around the area of the building from all the broken windows; and the city has tend to all the damaged trees to make sure they’re safe to be around.
“We’re working very hard to make sure we can phase in parts of the park being open again,” Elicker said. “We don’t have a specific date.”
Lamont with State Rep. Toni Walker (right).
Farewell, trees.
City Tree Warden Annie Mixsell (right).
Lou Mangini, a staffer in U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office, snaps a pic of the carousel building.
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