Sandy leaves worst damage in Hilltowns, Southampton

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Standing near an easel with a flip chart filled with streets that needed to be cleared of trees and fallen wires Tuesday afternoon at the Plainfield Safety Complex command center, Deputy Police Chief Stacey Magdycz talked about the town’s brush with tropical storm Sandy.

“We started getting pretty chaotic around here at about 3 a.m.,” Magdycz said. “We had a lot of trees down on lines and some utility poles taken out by the storm on South Central Street.”

In the Hilltowns, Plainfield seemed to bear the brunt of the storm in the early hours of the morning.

“Right now we have no phone service here and about 50 percent of the town has no power,” Magdycz said around 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Meanwhile in Chesterfield, Goshen, Cummington, Worthington and Williamsburg, tree damage was minimal, and while many residents were picking up debris from lawns and driveways, the region seemed to have escaped the more devastating effects of the storm.

“Things went well for the most part,” said Larry Holmberg, emergency management director for Chesterfield and Goshen. “Chesterfield is still recovering, and there are some people that are still out of power, but I am told we should be 100 percent by the end of the day.”

Holmberg said sparks from electrical wires caused problems on Route 143.

“We had a little damage on 143 near Bagg Road where live downed wires sparked an electrical fire that melted the pavement,” Holmberg said. “All roads are clear in town now.”

Meanwhile, Goshen Fire Chief Sue Labrie said she was happy to report that Goshen came through the storm without much damage. “We had small pockets where there were outages caused by trees, but National Grid was right on it,” she said.

Worthington Fire Chief Richard Granger said things went smoothly in his territory. “We had a lot trees down but we didn’t have a lot of widespread damage due to the storm,” Granger said.

Cummington Fire Chief Bernard Forgea was pleased with the quick response of utility workers.

“Things are going very well here,” Forgea said. “We really dodged a bullet. By and large, we only had about four spots that had minor problems but the utility workers jumped on them right away and they were resolved.”

In Williamsburg Town Clerk Brenda Lessard said she hardly noticed the storm.

“The fire chief was in earlier and he had nothing to report,” Lessard said. “At one point in the night I could hear the wind picking up and I thought, this is it, here it comes, then it just eventually died down.”

Southampton Highway Superintendent Edward J. Cauley estimated that about 20 trees came down on town roads during the storm. He said two roads remained closed Tuesday, but he expected both roads to be open today.

Officials with Western Massachusetts Electric Co. reported that 66 customers in town were still without power Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. All power was restored by 10 p.m., according to WMECO.

East Street was closed from Pleasant Street to Middle Road while WMECO and Verizon workers replaced at least three downed utility poles Tuesday afternoon, Cauley said. Highway Department workers had cleared the fallen trees from the streets and were chipping them, he added.

Parts of Fomer Road were also closed Tuesday morning due to downed trees. According to Southampton police, all roads were reopened by 9 p.m.

“We did have trees come down, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle,” he said. “We did lots of preparation work and it worked in our favor. By Wednesday, everything should be cleaned up.”

Staff writer Rebecca Everett contributed to this story.