The Storm of the Century..

Yes, our area had the biggest storm that I will always remember. One woman in our town died, as I will post an article on, and my house only received electricity today after being without since Saturday.

It's sad to have lost a life in our community from the storm- and my uncle, a responding officer to the incident, almost lost his life due to a tree that had crushed where he and his fellow officer sat in the vehicle just moments before.

I will never forget this storm, or the other news I received yesterday- my maternal grandfather has lung cancer.

[check out these pictures]

..Good news is that it's at an operable stage and there is great hope.

Falling Tree Kills Backcountry Greenwich Woman on Way to Dinner

Greenwich Time- A 61-year-old woman was killed after a tree struck her on the head as she and her husband walked in their northeast Greenwich neighborhood during the storm Saturday night.

Police did not release the woman's name pending notification of additional family members. Her husband, who was slightly injured, was treated and released from Greenwich Hospital, and could not be reached by telephone Sunday.

The woman and her husband lived on Boulder Brook Road, and were believed to be walking to a neighbor's home for dinner, police said.

Neighbor Gary Silberberg said he was outside checking on damage when he was approached by the woman's husband, asking him to help search for his wife.

"He was upset, he was agitated," Silberberg said. Darkness and extensive tree damage made the search difficult, Silberberg said.

"It was just awful there were so many trees down," he said.

Silberberg returned to his home to find a flashlight. When he returned a few minutes later the woman had been found lying on the road close to a tree.

"She was lying face down and we turned her over and I couldn't get a pulse and she had a gray pallor on her face," said Silberberg, 65, who had been a medic in the Army about 40 years ago.

A neighbor found a tarpaulin and Silberberg and other neighbors carried her to a nearby home where a doctor lived.

The doctor looked at her but there was nothing he could do, Silberberg said.

Police believed one white pine tree knocked two others down, and that one of the those trees fell on the woman's head.

"We think she died instantly," said Chief David Ridberg.

It took almost two hours for police and paramedics to arrive because of the storm damage that blocked roads leading to the scene, said Sgt. Michael O'Connor.

At one point he feared for his life on Stanwich Road.

"We were outside trying to move a tree when we heard a loud crack -- the gust of wind must have been 70 miles per hour easily -- and we jumped back into the truck," he said. "The tree just stopped above the hood, it was the (telephone) wires that stopped it. If I had moved that truck about four feet (before the tree came down) I think it would have crushed the truck."

The tree's trunk, which O'Connor estimated to be about three feet in diameter, stopped just inches above the hood of the police department pickup he was in with two other officers and two paramedics.

"It was right in the windshield, right in our faces," he said. "There were some expletives said and I said let's get out of here."

They parked the vehicle in a driveway and waited for a tree crew to cut the tree to let them through. But another tree was in their way preventing them from responding to Boulder Brook Road.

They got out and walked but in the meantime two detectives had reached the scene, said O'Connor. Instead they responded to other calls including one where a family had been trapped in a car for hours because trees had come down on either side of the car.

"It was like something out of a movie," O'Connor said about the damage wrought by the storm and the danger they were in. "I was scared. I have been a police officer for almost 26 years and I was a volunteer firefighter before that. This was the worst I have ever seen it. I do consider myself lucky."

It wasn't until about 11 p.m. that the woman and her husband were brought to the hospital, police said.

The woman's body will be taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Monday. Police did not know if an autopsy will be performed Monday.

Staff Writer Frank MacEachern can be reached at frank.maceachern@scni.com or 203-625-4434.

Schwarzenegger Orders Review of Sex Offender Case

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a review Friday of the way the state handled a molestation case involving a man who is now charged with murdering one California teenager and under investigation in another killing.

The order came a day after The Associated Press disclosed John Albert Gardner III could have been sent back to prison in 2007 for parole violations and evaluated for possible commitment to a state mental hospital as a sexually violent predator.

"We must learn from what happened in this case to make sure the public is protected from sexual predators," Schwarzenegger said in a statement detailing his order to the state Sex Offender Management Board.

Gardner, 30, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King in San Diego County. He also is a suspect but has not been charged in the killing of 14-year-old Amber Dubois, who disappeared as she walked to school in Escondido in early 2009.

The 17-member board includes law enforcement officials, crime victims, treatment experts and others who advise the governor and Legislature on sex offender policies.

Gardner pleaded guilty in 2000 to molesting a 13-year-old neighbor. He spent five years in prison and three years on parole before being released from supervision in September 2008.

Parole records independently obtained by the AP showed Gardner could have been sent back to prison in 2007 and 2008 for violations that included living too close to a college daycare center.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has said it was trying to determine if actions regarding Gardner's parole were consistent with policy and law.

"We are taking every appropriate step to review these case factors to determine if these potential infractions warranted a return to prison on their merits," Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement.

Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the department, previously said Gardner was considered to be a low- or moderate-risk sex offender, based on the assessment in use at the time.

He wasn't sent back to prison in September 2007 because he corrected the residency violation by moving away from the daycare center, Hidalgo said.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego, called for an investigation of the department and intends to hold public hearings before proposing legislation to increase penalties and oversight of sex offenders.

Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, said he would amend one of his existing bills now in the state Senate to increase the penalty for a first offense of raping a minor to a mandatory 25 years to life in prison.

The current punishment is 15 years to life and also depends on the age of the victim. Nava is a former prosecutor who is running for attorney general.

Nava's bill also proposes creating a system to call the cell phones of residents in a specific area letting them know when a sex crime has been committed in their neighborhood.

Mother Whose Milk Was Made Into Cheese Insists She's Better Than a Cow

NY Post- No matter what the city says, Lori Mason insists the breast milk she supplied her cheese-making husband is more wholesome than anything on the shelves at Whole Foods.

Her milk is 100 percent organic, free range, and foie gras-fed, she told The Post.

"I eat healthier than your average cow and I'm not pumped full of steroids!" Mason said.

When Mason's husband, Daniel Angerer, blogged about making some of his wife's excess breast milk into cheese, customers at his restaurant, Klee Brasserie on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, began demanding to have a taste.

But as The Post reported yesterday, even though expressed mother's-milk cheese is not against health codes, city officials strongly advised Angerer to desist.

The cheese could pose a potential health hazard, the officials said.

That did not stop diners eager to sample the human dairy from showing up at the restaurant yesterday.

"We had some people who ordered the cheese plate and I had to tell them we don't serve the breast-milk cheese in the restaurant," maitre d' Bari Musacchio said. "I told them if they wanted to try it, there is a recipe on the [Klee Brasserie] Web site."

According to Liz Thorpe, a vice president of Murray's Cheese shops in Manhattan, who reviewed Angerer's cheese for The Post, they aren't missing much.

"It was slippery, slightly crunchy and tasted like pickles," she said. "I give it a thumbs down."

But breast-milk cheese isn't just a matter of bad taste, it's potentially unsafe, city officials said.

"It's not intended for adults, or for wide public consumption," a Health Department spokeswoman said.

Risks would "depend on the health of the lactating woman," she said. "If the restaurant was found distributing the cheese in the establishment for public consumption, the Health Department could issue a violation."

Angerer said he has no intention of selling his wife's cheese in the restaurant, but he insisted it's actually a healthy food.

"I tried it and I'm still alive. The baby eats it all day long and she's fine too," he said.

Even though they're barred from distributing it to customers, Mason said the couple may hold private tasting parties "at our apartment or in the park in the spring with wine."

Mason, who has been propositioned by several creepy customers eager to sample her breast milk, offered one caveat.

"We may need security to stop the weird fetish people from coming in."

The Health Department nixed the cheese-party idea, too.

"He can't do that either," the spokeswoman said.