CLINTON - It all started with light snow falling throughout the town on the morning of Feb. 8, but Winter Storm Nemo would soon see Clinton First Selectman William "Willie" Fritz following Governor Dannel Malloy's lead by declaring a state of emergency for the town.

Director of Public Works (DPW) Peter Neff said this is the worst storm Clinton has seen, with about 36 inches of snow accumulating in total.

"There were a lot of resources that had to be gathered up and put to work," Neff said. "It was clearly something my department is not designed to handle or staff."

The impacts were widespread. The roof of the Unilever warehouse on Route 145 on Clinton collapsed Feb. 11 after rain and freezing rain soaked the sunstantial snow load on the flat roof. The Fire Department secured all the utilities in the building to mitigate hazards and Unilever has begun clean up efforts.

Clinton Public Schools were canceled Feb. 8, 11, and 12 and enacted a two-hour delay for Feb. 13.

Fortunately, unlike during the previous storms that have slammed Clinton in the past two years, Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) reported a peak of just 650 outages in town on Feb. 9, which was down to about 10 on Feb. 10.

Town Department of Public Works crews worked 36 hours straight at the height of the storm, taking a break at 5 p.m. on Feb. 9 and heading back at

7 a.m. on Feb. 10. Private contractors were hired to assist with the cleanup efforts. Local contractors included Schumack Engineered Construction, Finkeldey Services, Pinder Construction, Campanaro Construction, Old Colony Construction, and D.D. Heser Construction. Neff said that the work couldn't be completed in the manner that it was without the help of other residents in town.

"We had a real good response from contractors that lived in town. They were available, they contacted me, and it was really their work in conjunction with our department's work working together that allowed us to get a lot of stuff done in a short period of time," Neff said. "It was really a combined effort of a lot of different people, both public and private, and a lot of cooperation."

The previous pummeling by other "storms of the century" actually helped Clinton cope with Nemo.

"That's happened in the last two major storms-Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene, where we brought our local people to work with us," Neff said. "It's all about being able to work together with other departments in town, which we do very well with the Fire Department and Police Department. It's about being able to call your contractors who live in town who are dedicated to the town, and that makes it all work."

While by Feb. 10 at 2:30 p.m. about 95 percent of town roads were opened up to one lane, on Feb. 11, the Selectman's Office began to receive a number of calls requesting assistance. In an effort to provide help to those in need, the DPW and support contractors assisted roughly 120 residents who requested help in three days.

"We've taken some calls-it was basically disabled people, our elderly people with situations where they needed to get out and needed to get medication or needed to see the doctor or they couldn't get out and get the furnace repair man in or couldn't get oil delivered or food, and the Town Hall felt these were people in need," said Neff. "We actually went and made sure they had that access to what they needed to get access to. We handled a lot of stuff we don't normally handle, but when citizens are in need, you should be able to do that, so that's what we did."

Neff stated the last of the snow-clearing efforts was completed on Feb. 14.