State Police: Chestnut Hill Power Outages Caused by Route 9 Crash

Route 9 quickly became a snowy traffic nightmare yesterday afternoon after a 19-year-old Needham driver struck two utility poles near Dudley Road and cut off power to much of the area.

According to David A. Procopio, spokesman for the Massachussets State Police, the driver was traveling eastbound on Route 9 when he struck and severed the poles with his Toyota 4Runner just after 3 p.m. Neither the driver nor his 20-year-old female passenger were injured in the accident.

The accident force crews to shut down the right-side and breakdown lanes of Route 9 eastbound just as last night's blizzard was gaining force. Crews did not clear the scene and re-open the road entirely until 8 p.m., Procopio said.

Procopio said no charges have been filed, though the accident is still under investigation. The weather was likely a factor, he said.

MassDOT tweeted last night that wires were strewn all over the road following the accident. According to scanner reports, traffic lights were out on Route 9 and Hammond Pond Parkway as well.

Power outages were reported in the area, including in the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center. The , a wine shop near the Brookline-Newton border, tweeted that the outage had forced the store to close.

Both Verizon and NStar crews responded to the scene, Procopio said.

According to Mike Durand, a spokesman for NStar, roughly 980 customers briefly lost power as a result of the accident, with most customers regaining power within 10 to 30 minutes.

Around 50 customers lost power for three to four hours, Durand said, as they were likely closer to the accident scene.