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Malloy addressed the day’s snowstorm while holding a press conference in Hartford on Monday afternoon to announce his appointment of Morna Murray as the new commissioner of the Department of Developmental Services.
The storm that hit the state Monday was not extraordinary, as opposed to what was threatened last week, he said.
“We’ve been updated quite frequently with the Department of Transportation, they report they’re staying current on the highway system,” Malloy said. Trains are running on time or close and that few power outages have been reported, he said.
Malloy said he did not feel the need to issue travel bans or declare a state of emergency for this storm.
“In the last storm, we were being threatened with four inches of accumulation per hour for a number of hours that would have led to a total of somewhere between 20 and 30 inches of snow. Very different circumstances than the ones being presented in this storm, which is a long-duration storm, but not snowfall at a 4-inch clip,” Malloy said.
“If we expect people to honor our closures of these systems, it has to be based on the faith that when we say there are extraordinary circumstances, that they are in fact extraordinary. We live in New England, we get snow,” he said.
Since he’s been governor, there have been instances where declaring emergencies and warning people off the roads have been necessary, but it is not the case for every storm the state gets, Malloy said.
“There’s a difference between a winter storm, the likes of which I have experienced all my life in New England, and instances like the ones we experienced in 1978 or February of 2013 or the threat we had last week,” he said.
Another 2 to 4 inches of snow is expected to fall Monday, along with ice. A flash freeze on the state's roads could make for a difficult evening rush hour, according to the National Weather Service.
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