CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Drivers experienced low visibility on many of the Cape’s roads today.
PROVINCETOWN – Utility crews have restored power to Provincetown, but high winds continue to cause challenges for workers and white-out conditions are restricting travel in the Outer Cape towns.
“One of the issues we’re facing both with our equipment and with our crews is the fact that the winds are just hazardous and extremely strong especially toward the tip of the Cape,” said Michael Durand, spokesman for Eversource, the utility formerly known as NStar.
Power was out in most of Provincetown for more than an hour this morning.
But the Outer Cape’s troubles did not end there.
At about 1:15, Route 6 was closed by Massachusetts Highway officials from Stott’s Crossing near High Head Road in North Truro into Provincetown, because of white-out conditions, according to Truro police.
Police said visibility conditions were so severe that public safety officials opted to shut the road down.
Of the Provincetown outage, Durand said, “The wind knocked one of the wires off the support that is on the pole and when that came off that resulted in the power outage. Fortunately we were able to restore power fairly quickly there.”
After Provincetown’s power was restored, Dennis was the town with the most outages, about 1,300 at its peak.
Kevin Morley, spokesman for the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee, said he heard that the Dennis power outage was affecting the north side of town and occurred when power lines slapped together because of high winds.
Durand said, utility crews continue to battle severe conditions today.
“Our crews are working out in this weather now, as long as it’s safe to do so. We have to understand that they are, in a lot of cases, going 30 feet in the air in what are hazardous wind chill conditions. Safety first as far as responding. That is delaying our response in some cases,” Durand said.
