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Date: 3/22/2023
HILLTOWNS — The heavy wet snow that fell beginning in the early morning hours on March 14, sometimes at a rate of more than an inch an hour, totaled from one to three feet at the highest points in the Hilltowns, causing widespread power outages and trapping some people in their homes until the plows reached them.
In Russell, Municipal Light Department General Manager Alan Robinson said there was some damage at the substation owned by Eversource when a broken pole came down due to the weight of the snow on the wires, and part of it fell across the transformers, causing 100 percent of Russell Village to lose power on early Tuesday morning.
Although Russell Village’s power is administered by the town’s Municipal Light Plant, Russell’s feed comes from a Blandford substation through Eversource to a small substation in Russell which Eversource owns.
“We take it from there,” Robinson said.
Following the outage, Eversource brought in a 2.2 megawatt generator on a truck from Prime Power Rentals parked on Old Westfield Road to supply power to the town while the substation was repaired. Robinson said most of the town was reconnected by 4 p.m. on the day of the storm and was running on the generator. He said the last customer was turned on by 10 p.m.
Also losing power was the town of Chester, which is served by the Chester Municipal Electric Light Department. A state of emergency was declared on March 14, the day of the storm.
Robinson said by March 15, 95 percent of Chester was back on, except for certain underground lines that workers couldn’t get to. Robinson said his crew would be going out to Chester the next day to help get the last residents back on, including at the top of Round Hill Road, which recorded 38 inches of snow from the storm.
Blandford also declared a state of emergency on the day of the storm.
“We got over 30 inches of snow up here. We had trees down across almost every town-owned road, and widespread power outages,” said Town Administrator Christopher Dunne.
Dunne said as of March 16, he didn’t see any outages left on Eversource’s map.
“I believe all the town roads are open. Now the crews are just widening the roads, getting to some dirt roads that didn’t get plowed initially,” he said.
Dunne said calling for a state of emergency puts the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency on notice that the town might need assistance. Town officials are then able to waive some state and local procurement requirements, such as for a tree service, and get the best price they can.