NORTHAMPTON — High winds caused numerous road closures, cut power to thousands, and damaged cars and homes across Hampshire County on Monday.
A high wind warning was issued by the National Weather Service due to 20 to 35 mph winds and gusts up to 65 mph.
On Monday evening, more than 5,000 Hampshire County National Grid and Eversource customers were without power, according to the utilities’ websites. Hit particularly hard were Southampton, where roughly 38 percent of Eversource customers were without power, and Chesterfield, where 98 percent of the town’s 694 Eversource customers were without power as of 8 p.m.
The high winds led to many downed trees and power lines.
“We’ve had probably 30 trees down,” Hadley Police Sgt. Ken Hartwright said. Winds snapped a telephone pole in half, closing East Hadley Road, Hartwright said. Downed power lines also closed part of Route 9 in Hadley Monday afternoon.
Falling trees struck two homes in Northampton, on Cahillane Terrace and Winslow Avenue. The residents were not home at the time the trees fell, Northampton police said.
Poles, trees and wires closed parts of Ryan Road, Turkey Hill Road and Chesterfield Road, according to Northampton police on Monday evening.
A fallen tree at the intersection of Route 10 at Brickyard Road in Southampton closed the road, according to the Southampton Police Facebook page on Monday evening. The road was expected to be closed for several hours. Other blocked roads in town included Strong Road at East Street and a section of Glendale Road.
Downed trees and power lines were reported elsewhere throughout the area, though not all area police departments were able to provide details Monday evening.
In Granby, one lane of Amherst Street between Batchelor Street and Route 116 was closed Monday lunchtime, according to police.
“We’ve had trees all over the place,” said Police Chief Alan Wishart.
The tree on Amherst Street was reported down at 11:10 a.m., Wishart said, and initially closed off the road completely before it was opened to one lane of traffic.
The tree hit a power line, which Wishart said has been part of a larger power outage issue related to the wind.
“The power is kind of out spotty throughout town,” Wishart said.
Aldrich Street was also closed because of a downed tree, according to Wishart. Truby Street and Batchelor Street were also closed earlier in the day due to downed trees, but have since been reopened.
In Amherst, Tree Warden Alan Snow said Department of Public Works crews were going around town throughout the day, cleaning up numerous fallen branches from roads so traffic could continue to pass, though just one shade tree fell across a street.
Snow said his tree crew responded to clean up bigger branches that fell.
Much of the damage was to evergreens, Snow said, which have more sail and are more susceptible to high winds. Snow said he was also seeing tops of standing dead trees being knocked to the ground.
One of the most visible trees on private property that came down was in downtown Amherst, where most of a tall blue spruce in front of the American Legion Post 148, 96 Amity St., fell. The debris landed on two vehicles parked on South Prospect Street.
Because the tree didn’t block the road, Snow said a private company, Sobasko Cordwood & Logging of Hadley, came to clean up the wood.
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com
