When Will Power Come Back In South County?

NARRAGANSETT, RI — South County is reeling after a powerful storm tore through Rhode Island and Massachusetts Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Emergency crews have been hard at work throughout the day to clear downed trees, which blocked streets across the region and caused two school districts to cancel class.

As of Thursday night, more than 13,600 residents across South County remained in the dark. With so many scattered outages, most are still labeled "unassigned," with estimated restoration times of 11 p.m. on Saturday across the board. Check the status of an outage using National Grid's interactive power outage map.

Blake Filippi, the House minority leader and South County representative, slammed National Grid for their lack of preparedness ahead of the storm.

"Once again, many of our residents and businesses are going to be impacted by power outages, possibly for days. The Chariho School District, and the Westerly School District, and even classes at URI, have been canceled," Filippi said in a statement. "Many businesses are closed. Our elderly and infirmed are without power. It is time for National Grid to restore power to our residents today - and take action so that it is a dependable resource in the future."

Filippi called for consequences, saying the Public Utilities Commission needs to hold the company accountable for their "lack of a reasonable preparedness."

"Perhaps more eye-popping than our electric bills is that we suffer these outages year after year - mostly due to the lack of investment in infrastructure and preemptive tree trimming maintenance by National Grid," he continued.

Power is still out at the University of Rhode Island's Kingston campus, where all classes were canceled on Thursday. Classes are expected to resume as scheduled on Friday.

Out of an abundance of caution, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management closed Point Judith Pond and Potters Pond to shellfishing until further notice. The closure is a precautionary measure, as the heavy rain will likely raise bacteria in the pond to unsafe levels.

According to the University of Rhode Island's rain gauge, four inches of rain fell in the area overnight, and strong winds knocked down trees and power lines throughout the region.

Amidst the outages, several public shelters have been set up across South County. The Narragansett Public Library is open as a charging and comfort station, police said, as crews work to clear downed trees across the town. In Westerly, meanwhile, several traffic lights are without power. While officers have been stationed at many lights, police reminded drivers to treat all these intersections as a four-way stop and use extra caution.

The Department of Environmental Management will collect water samples from Point Judith and Potters Pond on Friday, with bacteria test results expected by late Saturday. The closure status will be updated when more information is available, the department said.