PROVIDENCE – Over 92,000 Rhode Island customers of National Grid lost power due to the coastal storm that ripped through the Northeast Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
National Grid said Wednesday morning that some restoration efforts are expected to continue over the next few days, as eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island were among the hardest-hit areas by the storm.
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“We’re seeing significant impact to our system as a result of downed trees, limbs, poles and wires, and we have also sustained damage to some transmission lines feeding substations, which results in wide-spread community outages,” said Michael McCallan, vice president of New England electric operations. “We remain focused on public safety today as our line and forestry workers work to assess and repair power systems in affected communities. We will be prioritizing those repairs that will return service to the largest number of customers first, and will of course continue to work until every customer has their electricity back.”
The National Weather Service said wind gusts in Rhode Island have been measured at over 70 mph, with speeds particularly high along the coast. In Massachusetts, gusts exceeded 80 mph in some coastal areas.
The weather service also referenced several social media reports of a parked plane at New Bedford Regional Airport being picked up by strong winds and landing in a road against a tree.
The R.I. Bridge and Turnpike Authority, which had earlier restricted access to the Newport Pell and Jamestown Verrazzano bridges due to high wind, reopened the bridges at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to most traffic. However, high-profile vehicles, including school buses, were not permitted to cross. Law enforcement at the bridges will stop any vehicle not deemed safe to cross the bridge, the authority said.
As a result of the storm, there were a number of school closures Wednesday, as well as school delays and distance learning days.
As of 11:50 a.m. Wednesday morning:
- Washington County was the most-affected county in the state, with 28,519 National Grid customers without power out of a total of 70,734.
- Bristol County had 10,356 of the 23,433 customers in the county without power.
- In Kent County, there were 21,556 affected customers out of a total of 80,808.
- In Providence County, there were over 16,748 customers without power, out of 278,101.
- Newport County had 3,844 customers without power out of a total of 46,924.
- In Bristol County, Mass., National Grid and Eversource were reporting over 55,000 customers affected out of a total of roughly 197,913 accounts.
The Associated Press reported that overall in Massachusetts, 425,000 homes were without power as of Wednesday morning.
