Rutland Herald
Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / Staff Photo
A crew from New England Tree Experts removes trees Thursday morning on Downs Road in Worcester after high winds overnight knocked out power to thousands of customers in central Vermont.
A crew from New England Tree Experts removes trees Thursday morning on Downs Road in Worcester after high winds overnight knocked out power to thousands of customers in central Vermont.
“We prepared for this,” said Green Mountain Power spokesperson Dorothy Schnure. “We tracked several different forecasters, and this was worse than the worst forecast.”
The regions hardest hit throughout the state were
the communities of Royalton, Springfield, Montpelier and Brattleboro,
Schnure said.
Schnure said Killington suffered the most outages in the Rutland
County area, reaching 3,500 customer outages since Wednesday afternoon.
All but two of the outages have been restored, Schnure said.
“We’ve had a lot of trees down, broken poles and downed power
lines,” Schnure said. “We’ve had to restring a lot of lines and remove a
lot of lines from the roads.”
Schnure said trees fell far more easily because the ground is still
soft and wet from all the rain, which loosened the roots and resulted
in huge trees falling across roadways.
Schnure said Green Mountain Power was overwhelmed with the amount of damage left in the windstorm’s wake.
“We have had more than 50,000 (customers)
affected, and have just shy of 11,000 to go. This will take us until the
end of the weekend before everyone is restored. We will work 24-7 until
everyone is restored,” she said.
GMP does an assessment of the total damage and
where the most customers have been affected, so they can better
concentrate efforts to bring more people back online quickly, Schnure
said.
Schnure also reported a safety concern for any
customers experiencing downed lines, as they can still carry enough
voltage to injure or even kill unsuspecting residents.
“Power lines that are down and tangled in trees
can be dangerous,” she said. “Electricity can travel through the ground
when it’s wet, so it’s very important to stay away from downed lines.
You cannot know if the line is live or not, so don’t take any chances.”
Brattleboro suffered some of the worst of the
damage, with 600 customers still reporting outages at 3 p.m. on
Thursday, according to Brattleboro Department of Public Works Director
Steve Barrett.
“Our water treatment plant has been operating on backup power since 11 p.m. last night,” said Barrett.
Barrett also reported several downed trees in
parks and cemetery areas, as well as one house in town that sustained
significant damage from a fallen tree.
Washington
Electric Co-op General Manager Patty Richards said customers throughout
the central Vermont region suffered outages, beginning at about 9 p.m.
Wednesday.
“We started
out with just over 2,000 people without power due to the wind storm
last night, and the whole state is being impacted,” Richards said. “So, we’ve restored a little over 1,300 people so far,” as of 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Richards warned it might be a while before service was restored to all customers.
“It’s just that there may be some stragglers that go into the night, overnight, that we’re not able to get back on. There are just so many different breaks in the line,” Richards said. “The wind picked up all over through the tree branches, and basically, every break in the line we have to go and fix. It’s likely we’ll have everybody back on by the end of the day tomorrow or it could be a day or two.”
Vermont Emergency Management tweeted a report from MesoWest, a
cooperative weather sharing project, that reported winds at 96 miles per
hour on Mt. Mansfield, 77 miles per hour on I-89 in Waterbury, and 63
miles per hour on Burton Island on Wednesday evening.
The National Weather Service in Burlington reported 63 mile-per-hour winds at both Gifford Woods in Rutland and Jay Peak just before 1 a.m. on Thursday, while portions of Route 12 in Worcester and Route 100 in Wardsboro remained closed later that morning due to downed power lines and trees, according to Vermont 511.
By 4 p.m. on Thursday, a total of 11,149 outages were reported throughout the state according to VToutages.com, most of which were reported in the central and southern portion of the state. At approximately 3 p.m., Windham County reported still having 4,970 outages, more than any other county. Washington County was second at 2,870 and Windsor County third with 2,190.
The National Weather Service in Burlington reported 63 mile-per-hour winds at both Gifford Woods in Rutland and Jay Peak just before 1 a.m. on Thursday, while portions of Route 12 in Worcester and Route 100 in Wardsboro remained closed later that morning due to downed power lines and trees, according to Vermont 511.
By 4 p.m. on Thursday, a total of 11,149 outages were reported throughout the state according to VToutages.com, most of which were reported in the central and southern portion of the state. At approximately 3 p.m., Windham County reported still having 4,970 outages, more than any other county. Washington County was second at 2,870 and Windsor County third with 2,190.
Vermont Department of Public Safety Spokesperson Mark
Bosma said the Vermont State Police hasn’t received any calls from towns
for assistance yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment