Winter storm knocks out power, cancels schools (2024)

Published: Jan. 10, 2024 at 6:35 AM EST

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - A strong winter storm brought snow, rain, and high winds to our region overnight. The messy mix accompanied by high winds caused upwards of 30,000 utility customers to lose power and closed schools across the region.

South Burlington resident Brit Kelson awoke early Wednesday to what she says felt like an earthquake. “Oh my god, something just hit our house. It wasn’t just a branch, like that was a tree,” she said.

Two pine trees went down with one hitting their roof just feet away from their four-year-old’s bedroom. Kelson says he’s traumatized. “He’s like, ‘We need to move, I don’t want to live here.’ Now, we’re going to have to work with him on ‘We’re ok, the house is safe, we made it through,’” she said.

Down the road, Sahara Bebo discovered that a tree had crushed her car. She had to call in backup to drive her to work while a removal crew got to work. “One of my friends picked me up with a cup of coffee and a pastry, emotional support pastry,” she said.

In St. Albans, Fire Chief Matt Mulheron rescued two people trapped in a bedroom underneath a tree. “We lifted the actual tree off the patients, extracted them from the house off the bed, and they were transported to Northwestern,” he said.

He says the victims’ conditions are unknown.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Rowe, an arborist with SavATree, was busy surveying his tenth home of the day in Essex. He says the worst his crew saw was a house in Burlington with a tree poking into the living room. Rowe said it’s been a mad dash covering all the damage. “I’m playing with puzzle pieces all day long as all of our sales arborists and crew members are. How do we shift gears here, crew members there,” he said.

Rowe says he is already booked through the week and expects more work with this weekend’s storm. He is asking customers to be patient as they triage the damage in their growing list. He advises people to keep an eye out for trees with roots wrapped around their base, rotting trees, and trees near others that have fallen — which can weaken the root system and cause others to fall.

STORM KNOCKS OUT POWER FOR THOUSANDS

The sun finally came out Wednesday but it was still dark inside the Jericho Center Country Store.

“We’re cooking in the dark,” said the store’s Sarah Jackson.

The over 200-year-old store has a generator that provides partial power, so the kitchen staff used headlamps to brighten up the space while they whipped up coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and of course, some good conversation.

“It’s kind of been nice because the store has been running since 1807. Back in the day, this was the meeting spot for everybody. People just sit and talk and there certainly been a lot of that,” Jackson said.

“Luckily, they have a generator here and I was able to come down and get a cup of coffee to clear my headache,” said Sara Farnsworth, a local resident who also lost power.

In the town of Cambridge, a 150-year-old tree collapsed on Frank Hutchins’s home. The 52-year-old grew up on the farm and his father was born in the house. He says they are no stranger to high winds. “It’s called Pleasant Valley, but when you get the winds or anything from the east coming off that mountain, the other nickname comes out -- Disaster Alley,” Hutchins said. He says they lost power around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. “I seen a lot of this in this valley and everything. I never seen it like last night was.”

Crews were busy Wednesday working to restore power across the region, including near the Wrongway Bridge in Cambridge, where seven power poles came down.

For Vermont Electric Co-Op, the state’s second-largest utility, the storm turned out the lights on 25% of their customers. The co-op’s Rebecca Towne says it could be until Friday before the toughest cases are back online. “It’s really a combination of where the wind hit hardest and then also where there’s a lot of trees and where it’s maybe difficult to access some of this territory to be able to restore,” she said.

Green Mountain Power says that at the height of the storm, they had around 35,000 customers in the dark but are down to several thousand. They expect the lights will be back on for the hardest-hit areas by Thursday.

“There were some incredibly high winds that happened with this storm, and where they happened, the damage was severe. The damage is not as widespread as was initially forecasted,” said GMP’s Kristin Kelly.

Power companies continue to stress to be safe with all the downed trees around the region and to stay away from any downed wires.

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