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Blizzard leaves Cape Cod buried and struggling to recover
Power outages are persisting across the region as shelters see a surge in seniors and medically vulnerable residents.
Intense winds blew across the Cape and southeastern Massachusetts Monday, knocking down tree limbs, damaging power lines, taking out internet and cell towers, and creating dangerous snow drifts that are blocking residents in their homes.
As the storm’s damage became clearer Tuesday morning, with parts of Barnstable County seeing as much as 37 inches of snow and power outages affecting hundreds of thousands of customers, worried family members posted on Facebook, asking for help contacting their older parents.
Others looked for help digging out or wondered if their nearby gas stations or grocery stores were open.
“This is just as bad as a hurricane right now because it’s cold,” said MaryAnn Ryan of Elder Services of Cape Cod and the Islands. “There are branches and wires down everywhere.”
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With so many of the organization’s 6,000 people, mostly frail and older adults, stuck at home, Ryan is concerned about how they will get groceries, health aids, and medications as they wait for someone to dig them out.
Ryan said that those on oxygen, freezing, or in need of medical attention need to call first responders for help and transport to a shelter.
“Don’t try to keep waiting it out,” she said.
Regional update
First responders, safety coordinators, and elected officials provided updates during a regional coordination call on Tuesday morning.
Emergency shelters and warming centers, some of which reached capacity last night, are continuing to open up in the region.
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Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority is providing transportation to residents and their pets to regional shelters. The CCTRA is also working with Family Table Collaborative to transport food to the shelters.
The Provincetown Community Center, which began as a warming center and transitioned into a shelter for 40 people last night, is running out of space, said Alex Morse, the town manager, on the call.
“If power is going to continue to be out the next couple of days, it’s only going to get worse, and demand is only going to get higher,” he said.
Andrew Platt, from the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment, said more cots and food are on the way.
Morse added that some of the people using the shelter are on oxygen, and others have health issues.
Health services
Outer Cape Health Services, which serves from Harwich to Provincetown, is out of commission while awaiting power.
As of now, Damian Archer, the CEO, says they can’t administer medications without power and internet.
“Extended days without power and internet mean that there’s going to be an increasing need for care as people with chronic illnesses start to run out of medicines,” he said. “You can’t hold people in this pattern for more than two days before they start to have significant medical emergencies.”
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As of now, if someone is in critical medical need, they are being sent to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. As of Tuesday morning, Eversource restored power to that hospital’s main building.
Power updates
Ronit Goldstein with Eversource said that over 156,000 customers remained without power Tuesday morning, with over 14,000 outages, or public safety incidents, such as wires down, reported in the county. Eversource is deploying 900 crews to the Cape.
“We’re dealing with a very significant event, significant damage,” she said. “All the residents can see that the sheer amount of snow that people are digging out from under.”
Goldstein said that it will take at least until Thursday to restore power to the region.
As power returns, so will internet and cell service. A Verizon representative said a generator is powering the main sites, but smaller supporting poles may be down. All but one of AT&T’s towers in Barnstable are down across the Cape, and Xfinity said it is working to restore internet connections as power returns.
“It seems daunting,” Goldstein said. “There’s a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done.”
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