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Schools

Due to Irene's Damage, Greenwich Schools' Opening Postponed to Sept. 7

Orientations for sixth, ninth grade students rescheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 6

Due to the number of roads blocked by fallen trees and the high number of downed power lines around town, due to Hurricane Irene, the opening of the Greenwich Public Schools for the 2011-2012 school year has been postponed to Wednesday, Sept. 7, announced at 4 p.m. today.

Orientations for sixth grade students entering the three middle schools and for ninth grade students entering Greenwich High School have been postponed to Tuesday, Sept. 6.

All school sports activities, including practices at Greenwich High School, will be held as usual, as these activities do not require bus transportation.

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

The Greenwich Public Schools were originally scheduled to open tomorrow, Thursday, Sept. 1 — and the sixth and ninth grade orientations were to be held today, Aug. 31. The school administration sent out a notice on Tuesday telling parents and school staff that the for the same reason: School buses don’t have safe passage through all town roads and fallen power lines pose a risk to students who walk to school.

According to CL&P’s “Outage Map,” there were still about 6,000 customers (including both residences and businesses) without power in Greenwich as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. That’s down from a total of more than 17,000 when the storm left the area Sunday evening.

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

Town officials said CL&P was bringing in an as of 3 p.m. Wednesday to help expedite power restoration to the remaining customers. The nine additional line crews will join the 12 that have already been working around town since Monday morning. In addition CL&P has deployed 15 tree crews in town — that's in addition to crews from the town Department of Public Works, which are responsible for clearing debris from roadways and town owned facilities.

"There are 65 trees that currently need to be addressed throughout Town, down from 145 yesterday evening," town officials reported at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. "The Town cannot address a tree if there are wires involved without Connecticut Light and Power’s assistance."

As of 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, the Town had identified 23 complete road blockages and seven partial road blockages. To access an updated list of road blockages, click here.

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