HYANNIS – The cleanup is underway after the Cape and Islands were hammered by heavy rain and hurricane force gusts early Monday, as a powerful storm brought southerly winds across the region.
Thousands of Cape Codders woke up with no power. A number of local roads were left impassable thanks to downed trees, utility poles, and wires.
“It was chaos,” said Kevin Morley, the Public Information Officer for the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee. “Trees on fire, poles on fire, poles falling down, just about anything you can imagine.”
At the height of the storm, 18,000 Cape Codders were without power. As of 9 a.m., just under 14,000 outages remained, many of them from Barnstable to the Cape Cod Canal. Outages were more scattered in nature on the Lower and Outer Cape.
Thousands of outages were reported in Wareham and Plymouth. The Plymouth Public School system was closed Monday due to a lack of power.
In Carver, 94 percent of homeowners were without electricity as of 9 a.m. Eversource crews had made significant progress by noon, as the number of customers in Carver without power was down to 15 percent.
But progress was, at times, hard to come by for line crews. Despite the bulk of the storm passing in the early morning hours, strong winds continued throughout the morning, bringing more power outages to the region.
“We’re continuing to see damage to our system because of the strong wind gusts,” said Eversource spokesman Mike Durand. “It’s very difficult to predict how long this restoration effort will take because we don’t know when the damage will stop coming,”
According to the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Agency, Eversource told them they hope to have power back on to most places by the end of the day.
Damage was widespread across the region.
A tree came down overnight on Race Lane in Marstons Mills, closing the road for hours.
A utility pole caught on fire in the median on Route 3 just north of the Sagamore Bridge, closing the highway down in both directions shortly before 8 a.m.
In Yarmouth, the weather appeared to contribute to a crash on Forest Road around 1 a.m. that damaged a utility pole and sent two people to Cape Cod Hospital with minor injuries.
An 82 mile per hour wind gust was reported in Mashpee. Winds hit 75 miles per hour in Barnstable and 72 miles per hour in Wellfleet.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Stephanie Dunten said two storms actually contributed to the wild weather.
“The first one came off the mid-Atlantic coast and developed a really strong low pressure system that is now moving up the Hudson Valley. The second storm we’re watching is what’s left over from Tropical Storm Philippe as it’s beginning to approach the Cape Cod area this morning,” said Dunten
There was also the possibility of minor coastal splash over during the hours of high tide on the south and east-facing coastlines.
Dunten said drier conditions are expected by later in the day Monday, but winds will remain brisk out of the west instead of the southeast on the order of 20 to 30 mph.
The Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee activated their Multi-Agency Coordination Center in Bourne at 10 p.m. Sunday night, but no shelter openings were expected.
The Steamship Authority cancelled some of its late Sunday trips between Nantucket and Hyannis due to the high winds. Both the Steamship Authority and Hyline cancelled runs to both islands on Monday.
As the storm approached on Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod crews were flying storm tracks and using marine radios to warn offshore boaters of the approaching weather.
All boaters living right on the coast were urged to secure small craft and paddle craft, including canoes, kayaks and paddle boards.
If drifting unmanned, they could set off unnecessary searches.
By MATT PITTA and MATT McCARTHY, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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