Replacing Tennis Court Fence Posts Bent by Tornado To Cost $9,000

Town officials on Tuesday approved a $9,000 contract with a West Haven-based company to replace fenceposts bent by a rare tornado that struck New Canaan earlier this month.

The Oct. 2 tornado appears to have started in the area of Marshall Ridge Road and then cut a path southwest that included New Canaan High School and Waveny grounds, “and it took a lot of trees down,” Recreation Director Steve Benko told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting.

And it bent an approximately 100-foot section of the fence on the eastern end of the tennis courts at New Canaan High School, which will require replacing the posts to fix, Benko said.

“When the courts were built, the posts were already cemented into the ground,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “They put sleeves around the posts and they did the post-tension concrete slab so that the posts are actually part of the slab. So what we have to do is cut the posts off and dig on the outside of the slab and put in new posts and reinstall the posts.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of a $9,220 contract with Hinding Tennis Courts LLC to do the job.

Hinding is the same company that installed the fences for the tennis courts, Benko said, and there are funds left in the project for this work.

Moynihan asked whether the fence is bending in toward the tennis courts or away from it, and hearing the latter, asked: “So is it critical that we do the work this year?”

Benko said yes, because the bent fence affects people walking by on the sidewalk outside the courts.