As part of the Eversource power restoration process, the Kingston Collection is one of four staging areas on the South Shore and Cape Cod. But next door in the town of Plympton, the town remains at 98 percent of customers without power. Plympton Fire Chief Steve Silva says there’s been talk, but little action from Eversource.
WATD’s Lenny Rowe files this report:
Plympton Fire Chief Steve Silva says restoration plans have not been communicated to the town. In front of the station, a large electric pole snapped at the height of the storm.
That caused the closure of Route 58.
“When the storm subsided, the pole remained of course in a precarious position. But then the question was, ‘is it safe enough to open the road?’ This is a major north/south corridor,” said Silva. “I personally argued with our friends at Eversource for over 36 hours just to have somebody come out and say ‘look, Chief, this is going to be okay, we can open that road right now.’
“Finally, last night, somebody came by and okayed the opening,” said Silva. “During that time, a town just north of us as an example, Halifax – that’s their main route to get to the Beth Israel Hospital in Plymouth.”
He says that caused delays in transport, but they avoided more serious incidents. The fire department had to be split at separate ends of the town to respond to calls.
They’ve been without power in town for longer than 48 hours.
“Clearly the storm caught everybody off-guard. No one can argue that. However, the fact that we have no municipal water, I have elderly people that have no running water in their house, as well as younger families,” said Silva. “There are some areas where I can’t even get into people’s driveways because of poles that are down. We’re having people line up the station to fill up five-gallon pails so they can bring it home and attempt to at least flush their toilet, as crass as that may sound. That’s where we’re at.”
He says there is no problem with the liaisons, the crews on the street, but there’s a disconnect from the planning section of upper management.
“What I want is simple – communications from people that can call the shots. We can tell them what our priorities are based on public safety needs of the town better than they can by sitting in a bunker, looking at a master board of what is running and what is not. It’s all we’re looking for,” said Silva. “I think we really need to sit down as a community with the utilities to hammer this out, to say what happens as these storms get worse over time. What’s a better way to handle this?”
An electric pole snapped during the height of the Oct. 27, 2021 storm, which forced the closure of Route 58 in Plympton. The pole remained snapped on Oct. 29, 2021. Photo credit: Lenny Rowe.
