Southington Braces for Severe Winter Storm

Trucks at the Highway Department garage on Saturday. PHILIP THIBODEAU PHOTOS

With a storm bearing down on the area that could bring anywhere from 12 to 18 inches of snow, town residents made their final preparations ahead of heavy snow expected to start falling Sunday morning.

At the Highway Department Garage on Della Bitta Drive just off Mulberry Street, the town’s 36 plow trucks were ready for deployment. Department employee Kevin Fields reported that the plan was for snowplow drivers to start preparing the trucks at 8:30am on Sunday. The Southington Police Department has announced that a Street Parking Ban will go into effect Sunday at 10am to make it easier and safer for crews to plow.

The Highway Department has more than enough sand to lay down on roads. However its supply of salt, which is mixed with sand to melt ice, is getting low. According to Fields, the supply was depleted by a series of sleet storms and freezes earlier this season. In addition, a nationwide shortage of road salt has affected municipalities across the country – and consumers as well.

At the January 7 meeting of the Public Works Commission, Highway Department Superintendent David Lapreay reported that the town had placed a order for more road salt. A pile of new salt was visible in the shed on Saturday afternoon. The hope is that this will be enough to get the Southington through the rest of the winter season.

Inside the Highway Department's salt shed: sand in the center, salt on the right.

Warming Shelters Open

Once temperatures drop low enough, Connecticut's Severe Cold Weather Protocol goes into effect, which leads to the opening of designated Warming Centers across the state. Each town has at least one center - a public building where people who need to stay warm can go to wait out the cold. Southington has three centers: the Police Station at 69 Lazy Lane, Calendar House at 388 Pleasant Street, and the Public Library, at 255 Main Street. The Police Station is open 24 hours a day, while Calendar House and the Library will reopen for use Monday morning at 8:30 and 9am, respectively.

Warming centers do not offer any extra services such as cots, snacks, or nurses on duty. However, people are welcome to linger in the spaces, no questions asked, as long as the space is open for business hours and the protocol is in place.

According to Librarian Shelley Holley, there are a number of individuals who regularly visit the Southington library whenever the cold becomes extreme. They take the opportunity to charge their phones and read a book. Generally, they just blend in with the other patrons.

Snow seen from the comfort of the Southington Public Library.

Food Service for Those in Need

For residents dealing with food insecurity, the prospect of being snowed in can be worrisome. Missy Cipriano, the director of Southington’s Bread for Life, says that her organization has done its best to ensure that every homebound client has received enough food for four days. Guests who normally take their meals at the building on Vermont Avenue are also given meals to last through the weekend.

Cipriano expects the kitchen at Bread for Life to keep its regular hours, noting that it has only closed once in the past nine years due to weather. If it does close, clients can reach out for assistance by calling (860) 276-8389.

Grocery Store Shelves Are Full

Although a few commenters on the Southington Talks Facebook group said that stores were “cleaned out,” there were plenty of eggs, bread, and milk for sale at Walmart and Stop and Shop on Saturday afternoon.

The dairy and egg sections at Stop and Shop.

Official Requests and Reminders

The police and other town departments have requested residents to take the following precautionary measures during the storm:

• Keep all trash and recycling bins out of the roadway.

• If possible, clear snow away from fire hydrants.

• Clear steps, walkways, and sidewalks.

• Check on neighbors and seniors.

Two reminders posted by the South Central Health District.

Board Of Education Student Updates: January 22, 2026

At each meeting of the Board of Education, three student representatives from Southington High School update the Board and the public on school system news. This year’s representatives are Ethan Hoffman, Arshi Roy, and Samrath Singh. What follows is the report they delivered at the Board’s January 22 meeting.

District Update – Arshi Roy

Derynoski Elementary School

Derynoski Elementary School will kick off its annual One School, One Book initiative this Friday, promoting a shared reading experience and fostering a love of literacy across the school community.

Kennedy Middle School

Student Recognition: Southington eighth grader Owen Warner has been selected as the recipient of the First Baptist Church Martin Luther King Jr. Award. Owen was recently recognized at school and will be formally honored this Sunday during a ceremony at First Baptist Church.

Arts and Activities: The winter music concert series concluded last week with a choral concert. Additionally, Unified Sports practices are now underway, with competitions scheduled to begin soon.

DePaolo Middle School

DePaolo Middle School was featured on Channel 30 News last week for hosting a breakfast honoring approximately 40 first responders, including police officers, firefighters, and EMTs, in recognition of their service. Special thanks are extended to Mr. Madancy and Mrs. Aresco for attending the event.

Academically, DePaolo students continue to engage in hands-on, real-world learning experiences. Eighth grade science students applied engineering and budgeting skills by designing and redesigning egg-drop prototypes using limited materials. Successful designs were tested with a 6-foot drop, followed by an advanced 20-foot challenge.

Sixth grade DePaolo students are actively collaborating on a STEM project focused on solving the real-world problem of vaccine transportation.

A special thank you to Kevin Salmeri of the Southington Fire Department, who visited DePaolo last Friday to teach all sixth graders about heat transfer.

Additionally, Algebra students at DePaolo will be taking their midterm exams on Monday.

Southington High School – Ethan Hoffman

Midterm examinations at Southington High School have concluded as of January 22.

Athletics – Samrath Singh

The winter sports season is well past the halfway point as teams prepare for the postseason. Highlights include:

The girls gymnastics and boys hockey teams remain undefeated.

Goalie Owen Doty has been named a finalist for the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Athlete of the Week.

The Unified Sports basketball team is scheduled to play at halftime of the girls basketball game on January 29 and the boys basketball game on February 9.

The boys basketball team hosted a community fundraiser at their most recent home game, collecting numerous bags of food for donation to Southington Bread for Life.

Southington High School also celebrated outstanding athletic achievements in indoor track and field, with multiple school records broken:

Jason Kalwat – Shot Put

Katie Cavanaugh – 3000 meters

Chimdi Ogbuagu – 55-meter dash

Walker Mierzejewski – 200 meters

Cole Hinkley, Berenger Xavier, Walker Mierzejewski, and Chimdi Ogbuagu – 4 x 200 meter relay

Finally, congratulations to Southington High School alum Austin Florian for qualifying for Team USA in the Winter Olympics in the sport of skeleton!

The Anxious Generation, Part I: The Problem

CREATIVE COMMONS STOCK PHOTO

“Young people today are different.” Yes, it seems every older generation always says that. We also like to say, “when I was a kid, we walked to school, carried our lunch, were always outside…” While all of this may be a cliché, the harsh reality is that we are experiencing a dramatic increase in social, emotional, and mental health issues, as well as substance abuse and suicide, compared to previous generations. Should we be concerned about this? What has caused it? Is there anything we can really do about it? 

Jonathan Haidt, in his recent book The Anxious Generation, addresses many of the questions mentioned above. Members our Southington school system read his book a year ago, and it warrants a public airing. I have already discussed the issues raised in Haidt’s book at our Southington public library class on January 17.

Haidt points out that around 2009 some dramatic changes started appearing in young people, changes that can be tied to internet technology: cell phones, social media, and video games. I was still teaching at SHS then, and I saw changes in how students interacted with each other and with me – as well as an increase in suicide attempts, substance abuse, and mental health challenges. Haidt also cites evidence for physical changes in the developing brains of young people as a result of these technologies.

Technological progress makes our lives easier, enhances communication and connection in the world, and vastly increases the availability of information. Yet it also produces negative impacts. Tech companies study how to deliver quick rewards to young people, dopamine hits that keep them hooked. Many for-profit companies intentionally seek to hook young people, thus altering brain and cognitive development, and increasing rates of anti-social behavior.

While many parents were thrilled to find that smartphones or tablets could keep a child happily engaged and quiet for hours, few understood the mental health, developmental and socialization damage that was being done. The frontal cortex of our brains, essential for self-control, delaying gratification and resisting temptation, is not fully developed until the mid-20s, and preteens are particularly vulnerable. Gen Z became the first generation ever to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and often unsuitable for children and adolescents. 

The average young person today spends five hours a day on the internet. COVID isolation did not help, either. No wonder that student self-reports of feeling isolated or lonely have escalated.

When studies started to show this, many parents and adults went into defensive denial. Few realized that the developing brains of impressionable young people were being rewired. Social media inflicted damage on girls, while video games, porn, and gambling damaged boys. In-person physical play and socialization were replaced by addictive internet content.

In addition to the Great Rewiring of Childhood, as Haidt describes it, parents have also became overprotective of their children, restricting their autonomy in the real world. Fears of kidnappers and sex offenders reduced free, unsupervised outdoor play. As a phone-based childhood replaced a play-based childhood, more young people prefer to stay indoors and play online. There some wandered into adult internet content with little adult supervision. Some even looked for emotional support in AI or online, with some shockingly negative consequences. The indoors is not much safer than the outdoors.

Haidt describes a grim situation. A law passed in 1998 called COPPA was supposed to protect children by requiring consent, and 13 became the “internet age” as a result, but it is easy to bypass this barrier.

Still, Haidt also suggests some other specific actions we as a society can do to counter this. I will talk about some of these ideas in my next column.