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In Storm’s Wake, New Canaan Firefighters Step In To Remove Ripped American Flag Tangled in Tree Downtown
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District officials spotted Old Glory straightaway, returning to their offices at Forest Street and Locust Avenue on Friday after a blustery winter storm that brought gusts of up to 50 mph to New Canaan. Those high winds had separated an American flag from its pole on the district’s leased property downtown and flung it into the upper branches of a nearby tree, where it was torn apart by more gusts, too high for district employees to reach. Cheryl Stolba, an administrative assistant to the New Canaan Public Schools’ director of finance and operations, contacted the property’s manager immediately. “I wanted to see it corrected as soon as possible, it just seemed a shame to have the flag hanging that way,” said Stolba, a longtime district employee and daughter of the late William Stolba, a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II. When she heard that a veteran who worked in the office building across the street had seen the discarded flag and was saddened by the sight, “that was even more impetus for me to get someone to deal with the flag properly,” Stolba said.