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| Three-phase power lines lie on Slough Road at Bolton Road, making the road impassable. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz) MORE PHOTOS |
As the first week of November came to an end, Harvard was slowly returning to normal after a record-setting October nor'easter felled trees and utility poles and brought down hundreds of feet of cable, phone, and electrical wire throughout the town.
By Wednesday morning, most Ayer Road businesses—from Harvard Plaza to the Hillside Garage—were once again serving customers, but Town Hall, the library, and other town buildings were still powered by generators imported from Baltimore. As this paper went to press, a majority of Harvard residents were also without electricity, heat, or water, though a Wednesday morning message from Fire Chief Rick Sicard at the town's emergency planning center promised "significant progress" by day's end.
The storm began mid-afternoon Saturday under a gray November-like sky. By Sunday morning, nearly a foot of wet, heavy snow had fallen on trees still laden with fall foliage, causing large numbers to give way under the weight. Oaks and other hardwoods seemed especially hard hit. Their branches and limbs were everywhere, draped across power lines or strewn along roads.
Entire trees cracked at their trunks, blocking major thoroughfares, such as Massachusetts Avenue and Poor Farm Road, or dangling across over streets such as Littleton or Shaker Road in a treacherous cat's cradle of utility wires, a danger to motorists venturing beneath them.
A worker with Lewis Tree—a subcontractor hired by National Grid to clear roads—suggested that the sudden change in temperature last weekend, from late summer warmth to unseasonable cold, may have weakened the normally tough oaks, hickories, and other hardwoods.
Harvard Department of Public Works road crews cleared as much debris as they could on Sunday, and quickly plowed the roads that were accessible. Snow blowers and private snow removal services made quick work of snow in driveways that hadn't been blocked by trees. The sound of chainsaws could be heard on just about every Harvard street. By early afternoon, residents were making their way through town, many headed elsewhere for food and warmth.
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| A minivan passes under a tree fallen across Littleton County Road. |
The real ordeal for most, however, began as the sun set. Whether a home is heated with oil or gas makes little difference without a source of power to ignite furnace burners. And with the water in most homes provided by electrically driven well pumps, lack of water for drinking, bathing and toilet-flushing is always a problem when power fails. Temperatures Sunday night were forecasted to drop below 20 degrees, another record.
Those with backup generators fired them up. Others lit their wood stoves or built fires in fireplaces unused since last winter. And on Sunday night, Chief Sicard ordered an emergency center opened at the Bromfield School for residents in need of water or a warm place to sleep over. Only one resident and a tree crew from the state Department of Conservation Recreation chose to spend the night.
During the three days the shelter remained open, no additional residents chose to sleep there. No cots or bedding was available; residents were required to bring their own.
No meals were served the first night, but that changed Monday morning. And as word got around that the showers, food and water were available at the school, the number of visitors began to climb.
Once Governor Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency in Worcester County, Sicard became responsible, by law, for the emergency response of the town. A working group consisting of Sicard, police Chief Edward Denmark, Town Administrator Tim Bragan, and other town officials began meeting Sunday, and every morning and afternoon thereafter, to coordinate relief and recovery efforts.
The entire 70-member volunteer Harvard Ambulance squad was activated to staff the emergency center for the duration of the emergency. Volunteers staffed the emergency center around the clock, with the late shift grabbing naps as it could. During the first two days, the service reported only three calls—a medical emergency, a fall, and a two-car collision. There were no injuries that could be blamed in any way on the storm.
Harvard residents woke up Monday morning to sunny skies, rising temperatures, and the hum of generators. But homes everywhere remained without power for a second straight day and among town businesses, only the Post Office was open. No General Store. No Dunkin' Donuts. No school, banks, pizza, or beer.
"We are 100 percent without power," Harvard DPW director Rich Nota told the Press on Monday. There were 42 streets in town with trees down, he said, "but at this point we're waiting for National Grid to remove them. Our crews have done all they can."
According to state regulations, if a downed tree or broken limb is touching a power line, only the utility company can remove it. At 2 p.m. Monday, the only company vehicle spotted in town by the Press was a pickup near downed lines on Route 111. Meanwhile, DPW crews, which were dealing with equipment breakdowns as well as snow, began to chip wire-free fallen limbs along some major roads.
In the meantime, however, school chef Paul Correnty had begun to serve hot coffee and muffins to residents who made their way to Bromfield and on Chief Sicard's order, the center announced it would begin to serve three hot meals a day. There was no charge, but residents were asked to sign in with volunteers on duty at the front desk so the town could collect an accurate count of meals served. This figure will be used to recover the cost of the emergency service from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) if the town later qualifies for funds.
As word of mouth spread, the number of visits to the center grew quickly, from more than 400 on Monday to more than 600 on Tuesday. On Monday night, diners ate amid Halloween decorations hung by Heidi Siegrist, her son Hunter, and friend Hannah Basnett. The entire Sullebarger family—Bob, Jane, Liza, and William—were on hand all three days as volunteer sous-chefs and servers.
The center also provided water and showers, though the availability of the showers was spotty the first day. Use was curtailed at one point on Monday when steam set off a faulty fire alarm, according to Colleen Nigzus, the school's head nurse and the emergency center coordinator.
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| 16 crews of electrical workers from C. C. Power of Kalkaska, Michigan, traveled to New England. |
Clean-up continues
The work to bring power back to the town proceeded slowly, with the number of crews in town increasing gradually from six on Monday to more than two dozen on Wednesday, according to the periodic reverse 911 reports issued by Chief Sicard. Most electrical crews were from out of town, none from National Grid. Work was hampered by the difficulty of untangling wires from trees, and then clearing debris so the trucks could work.
Verizon, which owns the poles on which electrical and other utility wires are strung, was slow to arrive on the scene to replace the broken ones, provoking an angry Peter Warren of Lancaster County Road to phone a local talk show on Tuesday to voice his complaint.
National Grid said since the beginning of the emergency that it would restore power to 90 percent of Harvard by Thursday afternoon, with connections proceeding from main lines to side streets to individual homes.
The electrical grid in Harvard is like the human nervous system, Gordon Shaw, a crew chief with Lewis Tree Service, explained to the Press Tuesday morning. All power to Harvard arrives from a substation near the Ayer police station, he said. The trunk line from Ayer is the spinal cord, the main branch lines along Poor Farm Road, Massachusetts Avenue, Still River Road, Littleton Road, and elsewhere are the arms and legs. Streets and private driveways are the fingers and toes. With the Ayer trunk line restored, clearing will continue along lines that serve neighborhoods. Downed lines that connect homes to the grid and other private lines will be the last to be repaired.
But, Shaw added, the damage is so extensive and random that the work might not follow a logical course.