Cleanup and restoration continues in the aftermath of the challenging storm event which arrived overnight on Wednesday, October 16 continuing into Thursday. Work on power restoration by Ever Source is moving forward more expeditiously given that the wind has finally subsided. As of this writing, the residential outages have shrunk from about 33% at the height of the storm down to about 14%. Public Works crews continue their excellent work, in almost all cases only awaiting the remediation of existing downed power lines in trees and tree limbs which must first be dealt with by Ever Source. Major downed limbs and outages have occurred at the Hospital Lights at Jones Road, along Locust Street towards Woods Hole and in a portion of downtown involving a main circuit serving some shops and Town Hall. Town Hall has continued to operate during normal business hours on generator power during this time. Falmouth beaches, particularly on the Vineyard Sound side, were significantly battered by the storm with loss of sand. In particular, Menauhant lost protective dunes (which arguably did their job in avoiding further adjacent storm damage). We are pursuing a restoration of these protective dunes. The Surf Drive area was also significantly impacted, with storm debris covering much of the roadway – Public Works acted swiftly to clear this storm debris. I joined Public Works Director Ray Jack in inspecting the Shining Sea Bikeway and, unfortunately, it suffered severe damage in the Trunk River area. This will necessarily result in the temporary closure of a portion of the Bikeway in that immediate area while repairs are pursued. The assessment continues. I want to thank Falmouth residents for their patience and understanding as Town public safety and public works employees worked to restore normalcy.
Julian M. Suso
Falmouth Town Manager
3:30PM Friday, October 18, 2019
