Conant Road was still closed at Old Conant Road on Wednesday afternoon with Eversource trucks the only vehicles in sight. (Photo by Alice Waugh)
Lincoln was barely brushed by Tropical Storm Isiasis on Tuesday, but it was enough to bring down dozens of trees and power lines and cut off electricity for hundreds.
During and after the period of high winds and intermittent rain starting around 3:30 p.m. on August 4, Lincoln police were deluged with calls about power failures and utility lines down from Weston Road, Tower Road, Trapelo Road, Old Farm Road, Bedford Road, Blueberry Lane, Greenridge Lane, North Great Road, Conant Road, Lincoln Road, Sandy Pond Road, Mackintosh Lane, Giles Road, Storey Drive, Old Concord Road, Chestnut Circle, Baker Bridge Road, and Silver Hill Road, as well as malfunctions with the town’s two traffic light
Dispatchers was extra busy, police said, because Eversource had an issue that made it difficult for the public to contact them, causing many residents to call police about power outages instead. One Greenridge Lane resident also called to report a car tangled up in power lines. Fortunately no one was in the car and Eversource was already in the area working on the problem, police said.
The problems continued well into Wednesday. Early in the morning, a tree on Bedford Road caught fire as a result of a downed power line, and police had to close the road at the intersection of Rte. 2 up to Morningside Lane.
As of 4 p.m., 604 of Lincoln’s 2,645 Eversource customers were still without power, according to the company’s online power outage map (click on “Eastern Massachusetts” for a town-by-town breakdown).
Things were much worse in Connecticut. Statewide, almost half of Eversource customers were without power late yesterday afternoon, with many towns approaching 100% of customers without power on a day when many areas saw temperatures in the 90s.