HYANNIS – The third nor’easter to strike the region in a week and a half pasted Cape Cod and the Islands with heavy wet snow that brought down trees and left tens-of-thousands in the dark.
The storm rolled in early Tuesday and grew in intensity with blizzard-like conditions hammering the area throughout the day.
At the height of the outages, more than 120,000 Eversource customers were in the dark.
One of the highest snowfall totals on Cape Cod was in Bourne with 14 inches. Nine inches fell in Falmouth and 8 inches in Harwich.
Shelters were opened on Cape Cod and Nantucket Tuesday as tens-of-thousands were left in the dark. The Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee was staffing shelters at the Barnstable Intermediate School, Sandwich High School and Cape Tech in Harwich.
“We want any who needs to get out of the house to come to a place where they can have warmth, shelter and security, regional shelters will be opening this evening,” said Public Information Officer Kevin Morley.
“Anyone who needs to go to a shelter should remember to pack belongings as if they were going on a trip. Make sure you bring, importantly, your medications,” Morley said.
A shelter was also opened on Nantucket where the entire island was without power at one point.
Governor Charlie Baker planned a visit to Cape Cod Wednesday to meet with emergency responders, utility officials and local lawmakers to review storm cleanup efforts.
Baker was set to hold a recovery roundtable discussion at the Barnstable County Multi-Agency Coordination Center in Barnstable Village.
He’ll be joined by several members of the Cape’s legislative delegation, including Plymouth/Barnstable State Senator Vinny deMacedo and Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr.
State Representatives Will Crocker, Tim Whelan, Sarah Peake and Randy Hunt will also be on hand.
All public schools on Cape Cod were closed in advance of the storm on Tuesday and most remained closed on Wednesday.
Hundreds of trees came down in the storm, with many of them taking down power lines along the way.
The storm hammered the region with damaging winds, gusting up to 65 mph along the Cape and Islands.
More than 100,000 power outages have been reported across the Cape due to the high winds and wet, heavy snow.
“We have significant damage on the Cape,” said Eversource spokesman Michael Durand. “The conditions were so bad that for a period today we were unable to continue our repair work because it was just not safe to do so.”
“We are going to bring in extra Eversource crews from other parts of our service territory and we still are in our emergency response mode from March 2, so we had crews with us already,” Durand said.
Crews will continue to work until all power will be restored.
“At this point, based on the conditions and the damage, we expect and we ask our customers to expect that this will be a multi-day restoration,” Durand said.
Customers who lose power can report outages by calling 800-592-2000, or going online at www.eversource.com.
Eversource also reminded any customers using an emergency generator to be sure it’s located well away from their home or business.
Transportation across Cape Cod and the Islands is still being impacted by yesterday’s storm.
Ferry service between Hyannis and Nantucket is on a boat by boat basis today with both the Steamship Authority and Hyline.
Plymouth and Brockton bus line is running on a regular schedule, while Peter Pan has limited service on its Cape Cod and Newport, Rhode Island runs.
The Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority has resumed service.
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By MATT PITTA, CapeCod.com News Director
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