Norwood Light Quickly Restores Power During First Nor'Easter

NORWOOD, MA - While more than 331,000 Massachusetts remain completely without power as of 10 a.m. this morning, Norwood was a shining example during the state's first Nor'easter, with workers mounting cherry pickers on Washington Street to restore service during the height of the storm yesterday afternoon. Full service was back by around 11 p.m.

At around 4:30 p.m. yesterday, crews from Norwood Light & Broadband worked at the corner of Washington Street and Railroad Avenue at Norwood Center to restore three poles and remove fallen trees, according to reports on the Norwood Light & Broadband Facebook page.

The traffic light at that intersection was out during that timeframe. There was a hole in the ground as crews worked there, which caused traffic to be blocked from Railroad Avenue to Howard Street while the power lines were restored.

During this period, traffic was detoured from Railroad Avenue to Baker and Howard Streets.

About 1,000 Norwood residents in the Washington Street-University Avenue area were affected by the disruption in service during the height of the storm, according to Norwood Light Department Superintendent Kevin Shaughnessy.

"We were just lucky," he said. "If the wind had been blowing in a different direction, it would have been a different story."

He added that a feed was lost at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, which caused some people to be without power for up to 16 hours.

"We got it down to about 90 customers in the evening, with the remaining 20 back at 11 p.m.," Shaughnessy said. "St. Catherine's was concerned about having their power restored so that they could have school today."

Other calls received during the storm were for the removal of small trees, he said.

Within the next few weeks, Norwood Light is planning on implementing an interactive power outage webpage so that residents can track where these events occur in town, according to Shaughnessy.

"We have a really good group here," he said of his team. "I know a few other municipal light departments, such as Hingham, Hull and Braintree, had some problems. But we were very lucky."

Assistant Superintendent Jason Haber, who has been with Norwood Light since 2015, was at the scene during the entire time. He noted that a tree fell further back on Washington Street as he was driving to the Railroad Ave. intersection.

"If it were five minutes later, the story would have been very different," he said.

He noted that he called the team into work the night before in preparation for anticipated outages so that workers would not be hindered by driving in the storm.

"Sometimes, half the battle is just getting to the site," Haber continued. "You never know what you're going to see when you get a call that the power is out. I really didn't expect to see four poles down and wires everywhere."

He complimented the police and fire departments for helping to block traffic and move cars out of the way so that the crews could get the power on efficiently.

Haber also shared the data about how rapidly the workers were able to restore service from the main outage, which occurred at 5:43 a.m.

"Out of 1,298 total customers effected by the Washington Street tree outage, we had 1,203 back on by 7:04 a.m. yesterday, which is 92.7 percent," he said. "Of those, 641 customers had their power restored by 6:37 a.m. Anoter 202 were restored by 6:48 a.m., and then 360 more came back at 7:04 a.m."

There were a few smaller outages scattered throughout town, he added, but they were quickly resolved.

"Our duty is to our ratepayers," Haber said. "In reality it's their company. We pride ourselves on tremendous customer service, so we wear it as a source of pride to be out in the wind and the rain."

He also noted the sense of cameraderie that his coworkers share makes the job rewarding.

Despite the massive shift he had undertaken, he spoke to Patch Wednesday evening as the department prepared to give a tour of the Norwood Light facility to the Norwood League of Women Voters at 6 p.m.

The Civic Center at 165 Nahatan St. offered its facility to those without power to shower, warm up and charge their electronic devices, according to the town's website. Shaughnessy noted that lunch and dinner was provided to those who came.

Norwood is one of the few Massachusetts communities with a municipal light department.

"The Town of Norwood is very fortunate A. to have a municipal light department," said Department of Public Works Director Mark Ryan, "and B. such a well-run and effective department. Norwood is in really great shape right now because the department is so well run."

According to poweroutage.us, more than 331,000 Massachusetts residents currently are without power as of Thursday morning.