(Olivia Thompson ’26)
WOODBURY — To this day many towns in Connecticut are still feeling the impacts of what a rainstorm left behind. Bridges, roads and buildings were destroyed. On Aug. 18, the towns of Naugatuck, Seymour, Southbury and Oxford received numerous inches of rain.
The town of Oxford was hit the hardest that day with an estimated 16 inches of rain across a 12 hour time period. Multiple buildings collapsed and washed down the overflowing Little River. In its path it also took major bridges and roads down with them, leaving the townspeople of Oxford with no way to get around.
Nonnewaug junior Addison Neilson has been affected by the transportation issue in Oxford. With many vital roads being closed in Oxford, their schools opened Sept. 5, a week after Nonnewaug High School had started.
“The first two weeks there wasn’t really any transportation to and from school. They said that we could get on the Seymour bus,” Neilson confirmed, “but then that just didn’t end up working out for like, any of the Oxford kids.”
Nonnewaug’s Oxford bus driver, Jeff Nadasen, explained the flood’s damage and the lack of detours and signs that weren’t up a couple of days after the flood. The rain fell so fast that in only 10 minutes, the rain overflowed drains, streams and rivers with people having to abandon their vehicles.
“It was very difficult because you didn’t know how to get to where you wanted to go,” said Nadasen. “And the problem, you know, not everything was written on a map to say that this was closed or that was closed, so you had to work around. You had to try and follow the detours. If there were and they couldn’t, they didn’t put detours up right away.”
These issues persisted for weeks after the flood.
“Even now, three weeks after the flood, there are still bridges down,” said Nadasen. “They have two bridges down [on Route] 67 that still affect our runs to the school.”
The Oxford bus run now takes an extra 20 minutes because of the detours.
“A trip that I would normally take, would be going to Walmart in Naugatuck,” Nadasen said. “What would normally take me 20 minutes, took me an hour and 15.”
