Brighton Power Outage This Afternoon for Two Hours

Brighton experienced a power outage this afternoon for around two hours beginning shortly after 3 pm.

The NStar automatron over the phone referred to the impacted areas as "Brighton and surrounding communities." It clearly covered a large swath around Brighton Center, but I didn't start making calls around the neighborhood to hear the true extent. Post a comment [below] to indicate if you lost power, and what street you're on.

The automatron also said that power would be restored by "noon" (= tomorrow!) -- fortunately, that wasn't the case, as it was restored around 5:30 pm today.

My guess as to the cause? The rain last night followed by very wet snow is weighing down tree branches a lot. I've already seen one small tree bent over so much that part of it broke, and several shrubs of ours that are bent over all the way to the ground. A downed power line from a fallen branch or tree seems a likely cause, although the extent of the outage is larger than you'd expect for even a well-placed power line. (I'm sure that Rochester, NY residents will laugh, however, if we call this a borderline ice storm...)

When the power came on, I had just moved all our refrigerator perishable contents to our 40-mud room. It provides double-duty throughout the colder months as a large, walk-in refrigerator with somewhat variable temperature (usually close to 40 degrees fahrenheit, just like a refrigerator).

Will we get a sudden, mad rush for batteries and flashlights at local stores? I predict so.


UPDATE (11 pm): The Allston-Brighton TAB reports that 2,500 Brighton customers were without power for one-and-one-half hours-- more like two-and-one-quarter by my watch -- and that the problems wasn't tree limbs downing power lines, but rather excessive water in an underground cabling system.

Power Outage Yesterday...

Came home last night to find that the power had been out earlier in the day. Normally not such a big deal... except when a truck, utility pole, smashed car, and several live wires are involved. Fortunately, students from Shaloh House (stone's throw away) and Winship School (outfielder's throw away) weren't yet out of school.

(Mike Adaskaveg, Boston Herald)