Nearly 400 Still Without Power In Newton Friday

NEWTON, MA — It's been more than 24 hours without power for some in Newton, but the last few hundred residents should have power back before midnight, according to Eversource.

As of Friday morning at 10 a.m. 420 customers were still without power. More than 600 customers across Newton are still without power Thursday evening into Friday. Following Wednesday night's storm, the MBTA was navigating fallen trees on the tracks, and police responding to several reports of intersections without working lights. Newton was one of the least affected areas with "only" 1,235 customers reporting no power according to Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency as of 7 a.m Thursday. That number went up to 1,327 by 11 a.m. but edged back down by the evening commute.

At the height of the outages Thursday morning, more than 223,000 were without power in Massachusetts. As of Friday morning 66,450 were still without power across the state, more than 24 hours after power was knocked out. As of 1:30 p.m., approximately 23,000 customers still didn't have power.

Eversource, the state's largest electricity provider, said it braced for the storm, but has made no estimate on how long repairs might take until Friday afternoon, noting the wind could make it tricky for the hundreds of "resources" they had out working Thursday.

“The fierce winds we experienced overnight caused widespread damage to the electric system,” Eversource Vice President of Electric Operations Doug Foley said in a release. “We have a large contingent of crews working in the communities hit hardest by this storm. Despite the high winds were expecting throughout the day, we’re there for our customers when they need us and are focused on safely restoring service to all of those affected by this storm.”

Eversource officials say as soon as weather conditions are safe, they find and monitor any safety hazards in the field, such as downed wires and snapped poles, de-energize the wires, assess the damage caused to its distribution system, and then begin making repairs and updating customers on progress.

"Depending on the severity of the damage, the process can be lengthy," they said in a statement.

Check out the tree that fell close to a home near the corner of at Lenox and Highland Streets, according to resident Bart Deal:

High winds in excess of 90 miles per hour last night along the coast, creating a "Bomb Cyclone" made things worse for folks on the Cape and the Islands, according to the National Weather Service.

Police said the dispatch center was receiving calls off the hook about downed wires, fallen trees and power outages related to the wind.

MBTA Work crews worked to remove a tree on the D line and then repair the wire damage between Waban and Woodland stations and that held up Green Line traffic.

For updates on the scope of the damage check out: Storm Damage: Power Outage Updates

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna)

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