Six South Shore communities remained completely without power Thursday morning, a portion of the 324,000 Massachusetts customers still without electricity from a nor’easter that also forced dozens of schools to remain closed for a second day.
The long-duration storm brought winds gusting as a high as 94 miles per hour and three inches of rain in some communities, resulting in the widespread downing of trees, especially on the South Shore and Cape Cod.
Crews from Eversource and National Grid will have decent weather to accompany them during their restoration efforts Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. But gusty winds from another storm could hamper restoration efforts Saturday, forecasters said.
At one point, power was knocked out for nearly 500,000 customers in Massachusetts, with the greatest number of outages in the southeastern part of the state. By 10:38 a.m. Thursday, the outages totals had been reduced to 324,736, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
As of Thursday morning, the hardest-hit communities, outage-wise, were Cohasset, Hanson, Hingham, Pembroke, Rockland and Scituate, although many neighboring towns reported outage percentages in the high 80s and 90s, according to the MEMA.
On the South Shore and parts of the Cape, long lines are forming at gas stations as people collect fuel needed to operate their generators and to replenish fuel for their vehicles.
Governor Charlie Baker warned Wednesday that the restoration of power would be a “multi-day process.”
Officials at the news conference asked people to regard every downed wire as a live wire; to drive carefully and keep an eye out for tree branches, work crews, and flooded roads; to be good neighbors, and to be patient.
“Assume every wire is a live wire. If you need to go out, be careful,” said Baker.
More than a dozen schools on the South Shore and Cape Cod will remain closed on Thursday, largely due to power outages, school officials said, including those in Carver, Marshfield, Duxbury, Plymouth, Stoughton, Orleans, Brockton, along with the Upper Cape Regional Technical High School and the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District, according to officials.
Stonehill College in Easton closed its campus and canceled in-person classes for Thursday and Friday because of an outage there, the college said.
Wareham planned to open a warming center at the town Multi-Service Center at 8 a.m. Thursday, according to fire department officials. Visitors will be required to wear face masks.
In Brockton, where the fire department responded to more than 300 calls in 24 hours, Mayor Robert F. Sullivan declared a state of emergency that began Wednesday at noon.
Rhode Island also saw significant power outages. About 15,262 National Grid customers in Rhode Island were without power around 5:45 a.m. Thursday.
National Grid said over 2,400 workers were fanning out across the region to address the power outages.
A wind gust of 94 miles per hour was recorded in Edgartown at 4:31 a.m. Wednesday, according to the weather service, one of the multiple instances when gusts reached speeds of over 80 miles per hour on Cape Cod and coastal South Shore communities.
Over the course of Thursday, forecasters said, wind gusts will continue to diminish and skies will be clearer, but it could still be gusty throughout the day. And one location where that was happening was at the Cumberland Farms store in Hanover where a line backed up onto the street.
But the disruption in routine of daily life also generated acts of kindness. In Marshfield, Karie O’Donnell, with her dog, Honey, offered coffee to drivers waiting at the Public Auto Service Center. O’Donnell, who owns KO Fine Art Gallery, next to the gas station and thought people in line could use a lift.
Cohasset, which asked for help from state Department of Correction workers to clean up debris, expected full restoration might take into Friday, Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley said in an e-mail shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday. Town officials will meet Thursday to discuss the next steps.
Town leadership/management, DPW, & public safety have a 10am meet today @ the Emergency Op’s Center. We will give a public sit. report and status update later in day. We have already been in contact w/ @nationalgridus today. The recovery begins! Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/J7AxMA2IJa
— Cohasset Police (@CohassetPolice) October 28, 2021
In Duxbury, where police and fire responded to multiple trees down and a high volume of emergency calls Wednesday, residents were advised to stay off the roads, “due to the large amount of debris still in the roadways,” the department said on Twitter.
Town Hall will also be closed Thursday, police said.
Keolis Commuter Services, which operates the MBTA’s commuter rail network reported that inbound trains on the Rockport line will start at Manchester-by-the-Sea “until further notice due to a downed utility pole in Gloucester. Shuttles busses will accommodate passengers between Rockport and Manchester but passengers may experience minor delays.”
Signal problems were causing delays on the Greenbush line Thursday.
Ferry service also continued to be affected Thursday. The MBTA said it needs to “make repairs to the Hingham Dock” and ferry service will not operate at all Thursday. However, modified ferry service will operate to Hull.
The Steamship Authority, which had cancellations and delays Tuesday and Wednesday, canceled the 6:30 a.m. ferry to Nantucket on Thursday, the agency said on its website.
Further disruptions are also possible “as the storm moves out to sea,” the agency said.
The state courts announced all courthouses in Barnstable County will remain closed Thursday due to lack of power as will district courts in Stoughton and Wareham. However, all other courthouses on Cape Cod and the South Shore that were closed Wednesday will operate Thursday, officials said.
While the impact of the winds got the most attention, the weather service reported Wednesday that some communities, especially along the north and south coasts, had experienced heavy rainfall.
According to the weather service, Salem, Randolph, New Bedford, and Chilmark each received more than 3 inches of rain, and more than 30 communities recorded in excess of 2 inches of rainfall.
Material from prior Globe coverage was used in this report.
John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe. Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney. Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear. Craig F. Walker Globe Photo
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6 South Shore communities still completely without power, among 330,000 in Mass. with no electricity - The Boston Globe
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