BURRILLVILLE/NORTH SMITHFIELD – Homes throughout Burrillville and North Smithfield lost power for several hours Friday afternoon leading some businesses to close and traffic lights dark at busy intersections.
RI Energy noted that 1,061 of their customers were affected and restoration efforts were underway from around noon to 2:15 p.m. Friday afternoon, with trucks seen working on Douglas Pike near the Western Hotel.
All Pascoag Utility District customers were reportedly also without power in an outage that extended from Pascoag into Slatersville, with some reporting outages in Blackstone, Mass. Burrillville Emergency Management Agency Chief Michael Gingell confirmed that there were no accidents in town that would have caused the outage there.
PUD officials noted that power was down for their customers because RI Energy dropped the connection at their substation.
“We do not have an ETA at this time but will post when we do,” PUD noted at the time. “We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have this resolved soon.”
On Green Street in North Smithfield, a generator provided power to Town Hall. But busy intersections at Slatersville Plaza and by Gator’s Pub had no traffic signal.
The Burrillville Police Department was running by generator and officials there were concerned about the issue at lights throughout that town.
“Please note in the event a traffic signal light is out, all traffic is to stop as if it were a red light or stop sign in all directions,” BPD noted, asking residents not to call the station about the outage.
“These questions should be directed to your energy provider,” the department said.
BPD noted that standard telephone lines and 911 lines are working for other emergencies and other police/fire/EMS related calls.
By around 3 p.m., it appeared power had been restored to all homes throughout the region.
Why is there a wire fire up rt 7
Wind on very dry grass = random fires in places. Both fascinating and terrifying to see.