Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is proposing legislation aimed at improving the state’s resilience in the face of severe weather events, including requiring expanded notification to homeowners and renters of the availability of flood insurance and the flood history of a property.

As part of a comprehensive resiliency bill, Lamont wants to require banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, and insurance brokers and agents to notify homeowners about the availability of flood insurance at the time of the mortgage signing and formally acknowledge if the customer has declined to purchase a flood policy.

Under current law, only homeowners who own a home within a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-designated flood zone are required to obtain flood insurance. According to Lamont, “many homeowners who have experienced a flood are surprised to learn that homeowners’ insurance does not cover flood damage.” Lamont is proposing to amend this law to establish an additional disclosure related to the history of flooding on a property or its location in a flood zone. Additionally, his proposal would extend this flood history and flood zone notification to renters.

In making his case for his flood notification and other proposals, Lamont noted that the period from July of 2023 to June of 2024 was the wettest year in recorded history for Connecticut, while 2024 was the hottest year and had the hottest summer on record for Hartford.

Recent Events

He cited the heavy rainfall in August that delivered severe flash flooding in Fairfield, Litchfield, and New Haven counties, resulting in three deaths and nearly $300 million in damage. He also recalled repeated heavy rainstorms in January of 2024 that resulted in a near-failure of a dam in Bozrah and severe flooding of the Yantic River in Norwich; severe flooding in September of 2023 that collapsed two bridges and stranded families; and an extended drought in the fall of 2024 that contributed to several brush fires, including a large fire on Lamentation Mountain in Berlin and Meriden and took the life of a firefighter.

Tri-State Region Shocked as Severe Floods Take 2 Lives, Leave Trail of Destruction

Flood-Stricken Connecticut Seeks Emergency Assistance from Federal Agencies

“These severe weather events aren’t just happening on TV in faraway locations, they’re happening in our backyards. It is urgent that we take the steps necessary to make sound investments that harden our infrastructure, defend our natural resources, and enact the protections we need to save human lives, property, and livelihood. This is a critical issue that ought to be near the top of every lawmaker’s priorities, and for the sake of the people of Connecticut I want to work with the legislature this session on enacting a comprehensive resiliency bill,” Lamont said.

Tri-State Flood Risk

Recent research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that nearly one million houses and multifamily buildings in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut—one in 10 properties in the tri-state area—are at high risk of flooding. These properties rank among the top 25% of riskiest properties nationally, the same flood risk category as some homes in coastal Florida, Texas, and Louisiana, according to the report, “Flood Risk and the Tristate Housing Market.”

1 in 10 Tri-State Properties at High Flood Risk: New York Fed

The report also found that nearly 40% of the tri-state properties at risk of flooding, or more than 400,000 properties, are in low- to moderate-income census tracts. These properties, including single-family homes and multifamily buildings, such as rental apartments, condominiums, and co-ops, are home to more than 1.5 million people.

Lamont’s Bill

The governor’s full resiliency proposal, which he will file on February 5 when he delivers his budget address to the General Assembly, also calls for:

• Expand state reviews of coastal development plans to include additional activities in flood risk areas near coastal functions that help buffer flooding (wetlands, beaches, and dunes).
• Remove the exemption for the coastal site plan review for single-family homes.
• Prohibit state investments in new or substantial renovation of residential development in the highest-risk flood areas.
• Have climate risks incorporated in all state and municipal plans for land use, hazard mitigation, transportation, and evacuation and increase sharing of mapping to improve local to state coordination.
• Clarify that municipalities that currently use municipal reserve and road funds to support local capital improvements may also use these funds to incorporate resiliency considerations.
• Create a program that helps municipalities incentivize development toward less-sensitive areas.
• Require municipalities to geolocate culverts and bridges.

Topics
Flood
Connecticut

Making good on a campaign promise, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump on Monday issued clemency to all defendants federally charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol he incited.

Eleven Connecticut residents had been charged in connection with the Justice Department’s investigation into Jan. 6. Two other defendants, Victoria Bergeson and Maurcio Mendez, both of Groton, were arrested on the day of the riot and charged with violation of the D.C. Code for unlawful entry to the Capitol grounds. They were each sentenced to 180 days of confinement and two years of probation.

Connecticut Public reached out to each defendant charged via the DOJ investigation or their legal counsel for comment on the pardons. All either declined or did not return calls or emails, except for Heather Shaner, who represented Carla Krzywicki. Krzywicki was part of a mother-daughter duo from Canterbury. Investigators say they climbed a bike rack to enter the Capitol.

“I am happy for my clients, if it makes their lives easier,” Shaner said. “I am terrified for the future of democracy.”

Shaner said Krzywicki benefited from probation because it provided her access to mental health treatment. She also said her client was extremely remorseful and had educated herself since the Capitol attack.

Shaner called the pardons “cynical horse [expletive].”

“I think it’s a big middle finger to America,” Shaner said. “It just validates the original Big Lie that the election was stolen. It’s just, ‘I’m a big boy. I can do anything the [expletive] I want. Ha ha, now I’m president.’”

Shaner’s attitude about the pardon stood in contrast to New Haven-based attorney Norm Pattis, who on Monday celebrated the broad pardon.

Meet the CT residents investigated by the DOJ after January 6, 2021

Patrick Edward McCaughey III, Ridgefield

McCaughey was charged with and convicted of seven felonies and two misdemeanors. Prosecutors presented evidence that McCaughey participated in the “savage beating” of a police officer at the Capitol. He was alleged to have participated in using a riot shield to pin a police officer in Capitol doors, as seen in dramatic footage. He had been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. CT Post reported Tuesday that his mother said he was currently en route to Connecticut after being released from prison in Ohio.

Richard Markey, Wolcott

Markey pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding police using a dangerous weapon. He had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Jean Lavin and daughter Carla Krzywicki, Canterbury

Lavin and Krzywicki had each received 36 months of probation after pleading guilty to charges that they breached the Capitol during the insurrection. Krzywicki had also been sentenced to three months of home detention, and Lavin had been sentenced to two months of home detention.

Brothers Thomas and Michael Kenny, Greenwich

Each pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. They were due to be sentenced Jan. 28, 2025.

Gino DiGiovanni Jr., Derby

Former Derby Alderman DiGiovanni pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building. In April 2024, he was sentenced to 10 days in prison and 12 months of supervised release.

Richard T. Crosby Jr., Harwinton 

Crosby breached the Senate chamber and stood on the dais alongside the so-called “QAnon Shaman.” He pleaded guilty to four charges. He was due to be sentenced in February.

Benjamin Cohen, Westport 

Cohen pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. Prosecutors said he took part in the pushing of a line of police officers. His case was dismissed on Tuesday before sentencing.

James Roe Cleary, Waterford 

Cleary was charged with multiple counts, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building. He pleaded not guilty and his case had been continued to March 2025.

Jeremy Baouche, New London

Baouche, an Electric Boat employee, pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. He had been sentenced to 30 days in prison and two years of probation.

Federal delegation reacts

Some members of Connecticut’s all-Democratic federal delegation were quick to respond to the pardons.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called the pardons a “massive celebration of political violence.”

“I just don’t think that we can over hype how dangerous it is that today… he is pardoning, he is expunging the prosecutions of the people who tried to tear down our Capitol, who tried to install into power the loser of the 2020 election,” Murphy said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called Trump’s decision “sickening.”

“The mass pardons for people who committed a violent insurrection, not only injuring but in some cases causing the deaths of police officers, is absolutely abhorrent,” Blumenthal told reporters. “These January 6 rioters were lawfully convicted by a jury of peers, everyday Americans, and it is a discredit to our criminal justice system for the president of the United States to issue pardons to people who sought to prevent a peaceful transition of power.”

Rep. Jim Himes, who was at the building during the Capitol breach that day, posted on social media that the pardons were “a grotesque abuse of authority and a betrayal of our democracy.”

Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto said Tuesday the party would only provide a statement on Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons “when there is a statement from [the Connecticut Democratic Party] on Biden pardons and clemency.”

One person who was trapped in a burning apartment building in Naugatuck on Tuesday morning suffered burns and was taken to the hospital, according to the fire department.

Firefighters responded to Oak Terrace on Conrad Street around 2:40 a.m.

A police officer who arrived first reported that smoke was coming from an apartment and a person could not get out, according to the fire department.

Naugatuck firefighters removed the resident, who was transported to Waterbury Hospital, and put out the fire. 

No other residents were displaced.

The Naugatuck fire marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire.