http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110309/NEWS03/703099861
Published March 9, 2011 in the Rutland Herald
Power returns to those who wait in the dark
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — The storm turned sections of Parker Hill Road in Springfield into a winding crystal tunnel, but the beauty of ice-encrusted trees meant cold comfort for hundreds of residents.
Crews from Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power were out in force Tuesday to restore power to the high-elevation sections of Springfield and Chester, which were hit hard in the Sunday-Monday storm that blanketed northern sections of the state with 2 feet of heavy wet snow but sent southern Vermont an icy mess.
“Wait until you see the top of the hill,” said Davey Tree crew leader Bill Barker of Cornish, N.H., whose crew works regularly in tandem with CVPS's Springfield line crew.
At the height of the storm, more than 12,000 CVPS customers, including 2,300 in Springfield, had lost electricity, with most of the outages in Windsor County and the higher towns in Bennington County.
By Tuesday morning, there were about 600 Springfield residents without power, and crews were focusing on Town Farm Road, Trombley Road and Parker Hill Road, said CVPS' Christine Rivers.
With the Sunday night-Monday morning storm, Barker said, a change in elevation of 200 feet could mean a big difference between electricity and no electricity.
While ice accumulation was a quarter of an inch, it wrapped around tree limbs, meaning total ice buildup was closer to an inch, he said. The temperature was supposed to hit 37 degrees by the afternoon, he said, and the trees would shed much of the ice then, he said.
Highway crews from Springfield and Rockingham were hoping for the ice to melt, but they had to remove the trees that fell and bent over into the road, making travel dangerous, said Mike Hindes, the Rockingham highway chief.
“I'm glad we didn't get two feet of snow,” said Hindes, who said the ice damage in his town was limited to parts of Parker Hill and Rockingham Hill roads.
Juston Smith of the Springfield Public Works Department said that the town can't touch any trees in the road if they are touching wires. In fact, the two-lane country road had turned into a winding one-lane track after the storm, as cars and trucks swerved to avoid the ice-laden trees bent over into the road.
A large ancient sugar maple, rotten to the core, had fallen across the road on Monday afternoon, blocking the town of Springfield from salting and sanding the road. It and other trees it took down with it pulled down the power lines the Springfield-based CVPS crew were restringing and then reactivating.
Further up the hill, and closer to the tunnels of tinkling ice, Springfield resident Terry Gulick had been without power since 7 a.m. Monday and he came out to talk trees with the crew from Davey.
Gulick — who has lived on Parker Hill for decades — mourned the storm's destruction as a young maple tree he planted on a neighbor's lawn was broken and split.
Ruined, was the assessment from the Davey folks. Those broken tops will only invite disease, and it would be best to cut the 30-year-old tree down and start new.
Men in hard hats invite conversation, and another neighbor came out to get an update on how soon the electricity might be restored.
Roger Osinchuk Sr., who was visiting his son Roger Jr. and his family from Alberta, Canada, said the family had made it through the night and had their morning coffee, thanks to a small generator.
But with two young children, the family was eager for a return to normalcy, he said.
The Davey men sharpened their Husquvarna chainsaw chains on the tailgates of their trucks, waiting for the linemen from CVPS to finish their work on a section below and move ahead so they could tackle another tree resting on the power line.
A hundred yards here, 100 feet there, the crews were restoring power “between fuses,” or sections of the power line.
By day's end, CVPS reported 700 customers still without power, including more than 100 in Springfield.
“When you have numerous tree limbs or trees on one section of line and that work takes a couple of hours — only to restore power to few customers with those repairs — the going is slow. That is unfortunately the nature of restoration work after an ice event,” said Rivers.
Rivers said crews will work through the night to restore most of the remaining customer outages, but some in the Springfield area may be without power until Wednesday.
And, she warned, “outages may bounce up and down tonight, as we may have to open lines to take trees off and/or make repairs.”
Power returns to those who wait in the dark
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — The storm turned sections of Parker Hill Road in Springfield into a winding crystal tunnel, but the beauty of ice-encrusted trees meant cold comfort for hundreds of residents.
Crews from Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power were out in force Tuesday to restore power to the high-elevation sections of Springfield and Chester, which were hit hard in the Sunday-Monday storm that blanketed northern sections of the state with 2 feet of heavy wet snow but sent southern Vermont an icy mess.
“Wait until you see the top of the hill,” said Davey Tree crew leader Bill Barker of Cornish, N.H., whose crew works regularly in tandem with CVPS's Springfield line crew.
At the height of the storm, more than 12,000 CVPS customers, including 2,300 in Springfield, had lost electricity, with most of the outages in Windsor County and the higher towns in Bennington County.
By Tuesday morning, there were about 600 Springfield residents without power, and crews were focusing on Town Farm Road, Trombley Road and Parker Hill Road, said CVPS' Christine Rivers.
With the Sunday night-Monday morning storm, Barker said, a change in elevation of 200 feet could mean a big difference between electricity and no electricity.
While ice accumulation was a quarter of an inch, it wrapped around tree limbs, meaning total ice buildup was closer to an inch, he said. The temperature was supposed to hit 37 degrees by the afternoon, he said, and the trees would shed much of the ice then, he said.
Highway crews from Springfield and Rockingham were hoping for the ice to melt, but they had to remove the trees that fell and bent over into the road, making travel dangerous, said Mike Hindes, the Rockingham highway chief.
“I'm glad we didn't get two feet of snow,” said Hindes, who said the ice damage in his town was limited to parts of Parker Hill and Rockingham Hill roads.
Juston Smith of the Springfield Public Works Department said that the town can't touch any trees in the road if they are touching wires. In fact, the two-lane country road had turned into a winding one-lane track after the storm, as cars and trucks swerved to avoid the ice-laden trees bent over into the road.
A large ancient sugar maple, rotten to the core, had fallen across the road on Monday afternoon, blocking the town of Springfield from salting and sanding the road. It and other trees it took down with it pulled down the power lines the Springfield-based CVPS crew were restringing and then reactivating.
Further up the hill, and closer to the tunnels of tinkling ice, Springfield resident Terry Gulick had been without power since 7 a.m. Monday and he came out to talk trees with the crew from Davey.
Gulick — who has lived on Parker Hill for decades — mourned the storm's destruction as a young maple tree he planted on a neighbor's lawn was broken and split.
Ruined, was the assessment from the Davey folks. Those broken tops will only invite disease, and it would be best to cut the 30-year-old tree down and start new.
Men in hard hats invite conversation, and another neighbor came out to get an update on how soon the electricity might be restored.
Roger Osinchuk Sr., who was visiting his son Roger Jr. and his family from Alberta, Canada, said the family had made it through the night and had their morning coffee, thanks to a small generator.
But with two young children, the family was eager for a return to normalcy, he said.
The Davey men sharpened their Husquvarna chainsaw chains on the tailgates of their trucks, waiting for the linemen from CVPS to finish their work on a section below and move ahead so they could tackle another tree resting on the power line.
A hundred yards here, 100 feet there, the crews were restoring power “between fuses,” or sections of the power line.
By day's end, CVPS reported 700 customers still without power, including more than 100 in Springfield.
“When you have numerous tree limbs or trees on one section of line and that work takes a couple of hours — only to restore power to few customers with those repairs — the going is slow. That is unfortunately the nature of restoration work after an ice event,” said Rivers.
Rivers said crews will work through the night to restore most of the remaining customer outages, but some in the Springfield area may be without power until Wednesday.
And, she warned, “outages may bounce up and down tonight, as we may have to open lines to take trees off and/or make repairs.”
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