Above: As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 900 customers were without power in Southborough (via National Grid)
Yesterday was a wild one in Southborough as Hurricane Sandy blew through town. I’m told winds gusted as high as 46 mph at the Fire Station on Main Street, but could have been even stronger in other parts of town.
Emergency crews spent much of the day responding to reports of downed trees and wires. Based on reports out of the Southborough Emergency Operations Center, the areas around Pine Hill Road, Woodland Road, and Boston/Framingham Roads seemed to be hit particularly hard.
As of Monday evening, National Grid reported just shy of 850 Southborough residents were without power. Most of the customers – a whopping 592 of them – were in the Fayville/Boston Road area. Other significant clusters included 112 customers between Woodland and Southville Roads, 45 on Oregon Road, 22 in the Pine Hill Road area, 17 on Clifford Road, and another 17 on Main Street west of Deerfoot Road.
As of this morning about 500 remain without power. The lights in Fayville are back on, but there’s an additional outage along Woodland Road, and one affecting the west side of town along the Route 495 corridor.
Schools in Southborough and Northborough were closed on Monday and they will continue to be so today. In making the decision to cancel school, Superintendent Charles Gobron cited “safety concerns” caused by the storm. Northborough appears to have been hit even harder, with more then 2,000 without power as of Monday night.
Most town facilities will be open on Tuesday, including the Southborough Library. An exception is the Town House which will be closed in the morning due to an ongoing power issue. Officials say they hope to open by noon.
As of last night there were still some road closures. Here’s the list from the Southborough Police Department. I’ll update it as I get new information:
- Nichols @ Clemmons
- Pine Hill Road @ #89 – One lane open as of 9:00 am
- Deerfoot Road @ #60
- Willow Street @ Route 9
- Burnett @ High Street
- The area from Boston Road- starting from Boston Road @ East Main Street to Boston Road @ Framingham Road. – Open as of 8:00 am
- East Main Street @ Framingham Road is closed to vehicular traffic. This means drivers will not be able to proceed North on Framingham Road at this point.
- Framingham Road @ Marlboro Road is closed to vehicular traffic.
- Moulton Road (in front of #3) is closed to vehicular traffic.
- Burnett Road @ High Street is closed to vehicular traffic.
- Oregon Road @ Edgewood Road is closed to vehicular traffic (due to Oregon Road in Ashland being closed at Oak Street).
Police ask residents to stay clear of these areas while utility crews work to clear the roads.
Thoughts today will surely shift to those parts of the East Coast hit much harder than we were, but I’ll continue to bring you the latest storm news for Southborough as it comes in throughout the day. I’m also putting together a photo gallery of your pics from the storm. Send me your photos at mysouthborough@gmail.com.
Update 2:10 pm: See this post for the latest update from Southborough town officials on the power and road situation. Also, officials say as of now, Halloween trick-or-treating is still on for Wednesday night.
Update 12:45 pm: National Grid now says 942 are without power in Southborough, up from 500 earlier. Not sure if there are new outages or if the website is finally reflecting reality.
Still no word on Halloween plans, but I’m trying to find out.
Update 12:00 pm: Need a tree service to help with clean up? Southborough residents are sharing their recommendations on the My Southborough Facebook page: www.facebook.com/mysouthborough. You don’t need a Facebook account to view the page.
Update 11:45 am: Southborough town officials are meeting right now with National Grid. I’ll share updates when I get them.
Update 11:30 am: Just got this message from Library Director Jane Cain, “After a bit of a bumpy start with our staff computers, the library is up and fully operative. All public computers are up and running, too. If people need a place to check emails or charge phones – or get something to read!, we are here until 9 p.m.”
Update 10:30 am: According to the National Grid website, the number of customers without power in Southborough has increased from about 500 to 717. New outages have been reported along Oak Hill Road and Middle Road (north). Many of those who lost power yesterday are still without.
Update 9:20 am – I updated the list of road closures above with the latest info from the Southborough Police Department.
i am absolutely beyond enraged at how the residents of Clifford Road have been passed over. We are still without power at 8:30am since yesterday at 1:14pm. National Grid representatives on the phone were clueless when we checked in, not even having registered our original calls. We have elderly residents living on our streets who do not have generators like I do: I am not posting as a resident who is whining because I am going without–our generator is powering our home.
This is completely WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG
When myself and my other 17 neighbors read how other areas go down and then back up again within hours we are speechless
at 1pm today we will be at 24 hours
I wonder how accurate the National Grid Power Outage webpage is. I checked all the S-boro outages listed & they are all “Assessing Condition”. It would be nice to see a few of those cute little construction hats scattered about the map since our area (Southborough, Westboro, & Northboro) is supposed to have dedicated crews assigned according to the statement released yesterday. I understand the inability to send crews out in 30+MPH winds but it seems to be relatively calm now, though rainy at times. Information is the key, though I suppose if people knew where the crews were the angry mobs would descend on them & demand they come fix *their* neighborhood.
The only thing I find annoying is my next door neighbor never lost power – I’m jealous but I’m also vindictive enough to hope my generator kept them awake. (kidding, kidding…)
Stub Toe Lane power outage reported to National Grid yesterday at 3:45. Haven’t heard it mentioned at all yet anywhere. Still being “assessed” at this time, according to National Grid web-site. Still without power.
an update from me :) thank you thank you thank you to SEOC! the wonderful kind woman who restored my faith and helped me!
>conversation did not go well with the 800 National Grid # good luck to those of you who have better experiences than I have had<
she promised to tell my situation to the National Grid representative our situation being that our street continues to be stuck in the "being assessed" pile……
i think i am going to use that line from now on with just about everything i don't feel like dealing with "your desire for blahbadeeblah is being assessed" the dishes in the sink? you got it! they are being assessed
There is hope…A fleet of bucket trucks just landed at Oregon and Edgewood!!
Glad to hear it!
Hour 26 and still no power on Clifford. I honesty cannot hate on National Grid enough and thankfully they do not run my business or we would be bankrupt. And my business is Union hopefully they treat their workers better than their customers. I am beyond beside myself and don’t want to hear one excuse not one single one.
Going into the storm, MEMA warned residents that they should prepare to be without power for an extended period. Many are still without power in Massachusetts and in the coastal Tri-State area it could be another 4-7 days. I saw about 30 bucket trucks from Michigan, Tennessee, and New Mex pull into town to add an assist. It was also 70 degrees. We lost power for a day, Then it came back on. I consider myself lucky.
Folks – It was a big storm, cut the utilities some slack (a little). I know it is frustrating, after Irene and the Halloweens storm we were down for 3 and 4 days. After less than 24 hours we need to be more understanding or move to the city where lines are not aerial. You have to take the good with the bad…. Be thankful you’re not in lower Manhattan or other areas that were devastated. I know I am….
Michael, thank you for saying what I was dying to say through each and every one of these posts! My daughter lives in MANHATTAN, so YES, we should all be thankful! The power companies are doing the best that they can.
Southboro is known for its rural character, unfortunately this includes TREES. Trees fall in storms like SANDY. Many of the roads that had trees fall are often too narrow for 2 vehicles. We really should be looking at a more aggressive tree maintenance program. The trees grow and the road gets smaller. Maybe even put in a few sidewalks.