Cleanup and power restoration from Monday's storm could take some time in Massachusetts after strong winds sent trees toppling onto power lines and anything in their path.
At least three people were killed in New England: one in Massachusetts and two in Maine. Two more people in Maine were missing after their car was swept away in floodwaters, Maine State Police said Tuesday.
Almost an entire Massachusetts town, Scituate, remained without power for part of Tuesday, while about half of Maine power customers were without power
There's still a lot of cleanup left in Newton, Massachusetts, on Tuesday morning. Video from Monday showed downed trees and broken power lines.
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Nearby areas in Needham and Wellesley were also hit hard by the storm system.
However, back on Dedham Street, video taken by a nearby neighbor showed a car engulfed in flames. The person who took the video did so after losing power at their house, and his basement was flooded. His brother tried to go down there.
"His whole ankle, it goes up between the calf or the ankle, it goes up 4 or 5 inches," he said.
Utility companies push to restore power
Massachusetts' major utility companies gave updates Tuesday on how power restoration was coming along.
National Grid said they were still working to restore power to 20,242 of its Massachusetts customers as of 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, down more than 50,000 from around 10 a.m. They said the highest concentrations of outages remain in the counties of Bristol, Norfolk, and Plymouth.
The utility said they have secured additional crews from New York and Canada to help with the restoration effort, and that they'll continue working for as long as needed to restore service as quickly and safely as conditions allow.
“Our crews continue to work tirelessly to restore service as quickly and as safely as we can, and we’ve made great progress throughout the day today,” said Tim Moore, Vice President for Electric Operations for New England. “This storm caused extensive damage largely across Eastern Massachusetts, and we have allocated additional crews who are focused on the hardest hit locations. We recognize that no one wants to be without power, especially as everyone is preparing for the holidays, but we’ll continue to work until every last customer is restored.”
"As always, the safety of our customers, communities, and crews is the top priority during any power restoration process."
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Eversource had about 10,971 customers without power as of 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, mainly around Plymouth and in MetroWest, said Craig Hallstrom, regional president of electric operations for Eversource.
"We expect the storm to be significantly over by tomorrow evening but today we really expect the majority of our customers to be restored," he said.
Hallstrom noted that the company was able to get power back to about 160,000 customers on Monday, during the storm, thanks to work crews who "picked their lulls" between heavy wind gusts.
There were expected to be about 600 crews on the ground in Massachusetts by the end of Tuesday, according to Hallstrom, who added that some would likely be released up to Maine when work is done in Massachusetts.
Most of Scituate without power at one point
Over in Scituate, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency listed 92% of the town without power at one point.
Power crews were hard at work Tuesday morning trying to restore electricity, but they couldn't really get started until the storm stopped.
About 5,400 residents had their power back on as of 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, said the Scituate Emergency Management Agency. And approximately 90% of people had their power restored as of 8 p.m.
Full power restoration could take up to 48 hours from Tuesday, the agency said, adding that crews would diligently work through the night.
Nearby, Norwell, Pembroke and Cohasset, all had significant outages as well. All of those communities, along with Scituate, had no school on Tuesday.
There's a significant number of streets that are impassable, with either trees or branches down, power lines down or damage because of the sheer amount of rainfall Sunday into Monday.
Even the Scituate's town administrator said he was surprised when the storm seemed to suddenly kick up mid-morning.
"Then all the sudden, really about that one-hour period, the storm just was ferocious. The winds really picked up, the rain really picked up and that's when things started jumping. I think we were hoping we were going to get through this and Mother Nature said, 'No, you're not,'" Scituate Town Administrator James Boudreau said.
The town estimates it will take power crews a couple of days to restore power, obviously prioritizing the larger outages and then focusing on the more localized problems.
Residents looking for warming and device-charging facilities on Tuesday can go to the Scituate Town Library (closes at 9 p.m.), Scituate Senior Center (open until 5:30 p.m.) or Town Hall (closes at 7:30 p.m.).
The transfer station, initially closed because of a power outage, will now be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., said the Scituate EMA.
Maine, Vermont devastated by Tuesday's storm
In Maine, over 227,000 homes were without power as of late Tuesday.
"We continue to make progress in our efforts to restore power to all customers affected by yesterday’s wind and rainstorm," CMP said on its website. "So far today, we have restored power to more than 117,000 customers or about 29% of those affected. We have more than 2,000 people including 1,400 line and tree crews on the job now with more arriving tomorrow, working 24x7 until power is restored to all of our customers."
"We know it can seem frustrating and as if nothing is happening but, rest assured, we are on it – working to complete these initial steps of restoration as safely and quickly as possible."
Some towns in Vermont, which had suffered major flooding from a storm in July, were seeing more flood damage.
Five months after flooding inundated Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier, water entered the basements of some downtown businesses as the city monitored the level of the Winooski River, officials said.
Three people were rescued from a home in Jamaica and another in Waterbury when that person’s vehicle was swept away by floodwaters, said Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison at a press conference with the governor. Several shelters were set up.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
