Strong winds pounded Bennington, Rutland and Addison Counties last night, knocking out power to some 14,000 CVPS customers at the height of the storm around midnight. As of 7:30 a.m., 4,800 remain without power, the majority in Bennington County.
Crews worked through the night last night and made great progress in Addison and Rutland counties. About 200 customers remain without power in Rutland County.
About 4,600 customers are without power in Bennington County. Arlington and Shaftsbury were two of the hardest hit towns, with outages also remaining in the towns of Bennington, Dorset, Manchester and Pownal, and scattered outages elsewhere.
‘This storm really pounded the Arlington and Shaftsbury area,’ said Storm Planning Chief Jeremy Baker. ‘But elevation really played a role in the wind damage; 400 or 500 feet really made all the difference whether you were seeing any winds or not.’
Wind damage brought down trees on transmission lines on both sides of Arlington, locking out two substations throughout the night. After patrolling lines in the dark and in the midst of continuing high winds, crews found several trees on transmission lines and broken crossarms and insulators.
‘We have moved crews from our other districts down into Bennington County to work on the restoration effort today,’ said spokeswoman Christine Rivers. ‘While winds are anticipated to continue today, we have not seen a lot of additional outages as people wake up this morning. We may see some additional scattered outages today, however. Crews will work through the day to restore power as quickly as is safely possible.’
Up-to-date outage numbers (by town) can be found at: http://www.cvps.com/CustomerService/outages/default.aspx.
Source: CVPS. 8.23.2010
Bennington County area hit hard as winds knock out power to 14,000 CVPS customers
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on