NEWBURYPORT — Power outages and closed roads were in abundance Monday as a powerful storm plowed through the region.
Roads in Newbury, Rowley, Newburyport, Amesbury and other Greater Newburyport communities were closed as trees knocked down power lines and uprooted poles. Getting to Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport was also hindered as a tree fell on nearby Sylvester Street.
All units at the Newburyport Police Department were busy as they dealt with the effects of the storm.
“It’s very busy here as you can imagine,” a dispatcher responded when The Daily News reached out to the department for comment.
While no one was available for comment, the dispatcher shared what she could.
“What I can tell you is we are dealing with a large number of outages and downed wires and poles, including one on Hale Street,” the dispatcher said.
The department’s official Facebook page posted an update on the situation, noting widespread outages across parts of Plum Island, while highlighting PITA Hall’s availability as a shelter from the storm.
Newburyport District Court was not spared from power disruptions with the lights going out around 10:45 a.m. According to one employee, the courthouse closed at 1 p.m. and employees were sent home.
According to National Grid’s active outage map as of 1:30 p.m. Monday, 1,312 customers on Plum Island were affected by outages with an expected restoration time of 3:30 p.m. Additional smaller outages were scattered throughout the city.
Salisbury police Lt. Rich Dellaria said Monday the town was experiencing three areas with outages: Mudnock Road, Salisbury Plains consisting of Folly Mill Road and Locust Street, and Baker Road. An additional outage broke out at Seabrook Road at noon, according to National Grids active outage map.
As of 1:30 p.m., the map showed over a dozen customers still impacted on Mudnock Road, 158 at Baker Road, fewer than five at Salisbury Plains, and 123 on Seabrook Road. Folks on Baker Street were expected to get power back by 3 p.m.
Dellaria said these kind of conditions are nothing new to Salisbury residents.
“I’m confident in the residents’ abilities to make sound decisions based on their safety, but we’re always available if they need to call us,” Dellaria said.
Triton students were able to reap a silver lining from the storm as outages at Triton Regional Middle/High School as well as at Newbury Elementary School led to Triton Superintendent Brian Forget calling a half day.
“I ended up calling a half day because of issues with serving lunches, etc.,” Forget said.
Amesbury Police Chief Craig Bailey spoke about how Amesbury was faring during the inclement weather.
“Our call volume is above average today because of the storm, answering quite a few calls for trees down, wires down and so forth,” Bailey said.
According to National Grid, the majority of Amesbury’s outages were along Pleasant Valley Road. As of 1:30 p.m., 88 customers in that area were still affected with no estimated timeframe.
Bailey offered advice to residents.
“Stay inside, rest assured it’ll pass. If they run into any problems with wires down, trees down, make sure that they call emergency services to give them a hand,” Bailey said.
He said there were a few road closures due to the storm.
“The deputy came in this morning, she’s like man, it took me a little bit longer to get to work today because of the road closures, but she made it in on time,” Bailey said.
Daily News editor Dave Rogers contributed to this report.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.