Electric, clean-up crews strained by storm
August 4, 2006
By Margaret Hawryluk, Enterprise special correspondent

Meteorologists are calling Wednesday's wild weather a “derecho” — a
long-lived windstorm with a band of thunderstorms — but Christine Ellis of Brockton is just calling it a mess.

“I hate watching this,” said Ellis, as Newcomb's Tree Service crews
worked to remove three trees that had toppled onto her Digby Avenue
house and through the roof. “Nobody got hurt, though, that's the way to
look at it.”

Ellis said the trees had penetrated her roof in several places, with one
branch protruding from her closet.

“I just closed the closet door, so everything would look normal,” she said
laughing.

Crews and residents in the area worked through the day Thursday in
Brockton, which was one of the hardest hit areas, to clean debris left in
the storm's path.

“We worked all day and all night,” Michael Thoreson, commissioner of the Department of Public Works in Brockton, said Thursday. “All the roads are basically clear and passable.”

Then they went to work cutting and moving trees, concentrating on
city-owned trees and those that “are a safety hazard,” he said.

“We've got everybody working who can,” Thoreson said, adding he hasn't
even begun to think of how much the city will be paying crews for overtime.

Steve Hall, vice president of business services for National Grid, said
overtime pay is his last concern on Thursday as 20,500 customers were
still without electricity in the area.

Early Thursday afternoon, Hall said, a substation was lost in Easton and
Stoughton, resulting in 9,700 residents without power in Stoughton
and 7,800 in Easton.

Hall said 4,000 customers were without power Thursday morning, until they
lost the substations.

“We're still investigating why this happened,” he said.

In Brockton there were 1,200 people left without power due to several
utility poles being knocked down along Pearl and Belmont streets.

The Brockton Housing Authority Campello Highrise “B,” home to primarily
elderly and disabled residents, was still dealing with electrical issues
Thursday afternoon.

“Lightening must've hit that place,” Frank Fama foreman for the Brockton
Housing Authority, said.

Fama said that two 200 amp. fuses were blown after the storm and the
building was running on generators the entire night. The only areas left
without power by early afternoon were the stairwells, hallways and
elevators — all apartment units had electricity and phone service, said
Wally Barris, a maintence mechanic, said.

Power was fully restored to the building at 12:30 p.m.

As of this morning, 178 residents in the South Shore — 138 of which were scattered through Brockton — were without electricity and crews were still working to restore all customers, Debbie Drew, spokesperson for the
National Grid, said.

Jane Swanwick of Easton was glad to have electricity in her Dean Street
home, but not pleased to see a pine tree lying across the roof.

“We were watching the weather as they were saying the storms were
coming,” she said. “Then we saw the clouds and heard bam, bam, bam.”

The commotion was four trees that had fallen, one of which cracked the
beams in her home and pushed a branch through the ceiling of the room
where she keeps delicate collectibles.

Unbelievably, Swanwick said none of the glass bowls and vases were damaged.

Nicole Belk, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the high temperatures and oppressive humidity caused the air to become unstable, thus forming the derecho.

Both Hall and Thoreson said that although Wednesday's weather came as a surprise, they will be prepared for Thursday with extra crews on hand to handle any emergencies.

“We should have the area put back today, but Pearl Street is going to be
slower,” said Hall. “The very last one back could take up to Saturday.”

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