Thousands of homes and businesses without power across Massachusetts

BOSTON - Heavy, wet snow and freezing rain have caused power outages across Massachusetts. Trees and wires are down in several towns, especially in northern Worcester County.

According to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, there were about 14,000 customers without electricity as of 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Check: Massachusetts Power Outages

A tree branch knocked out power to Lynn and George Raymond's Princeton home at 2 a.m. Monday. "The house shook. The house shook twice," said Lynn Raymond. "That woke me up and we could hear the bang."

In Holden, even before the snow picked up Monday afternoon, crews were dealing with power outages that took down traffic lights. On Princeton Street, an entire pole came down.  

The generator was humming at the Alden home in Ashby Monday night, and downed trees made their street, Jones Hill Road, quite the adventure.

"The trees kept coming down and then we lost power," April Alden said. "And then it didn't come back on so I knew it was going to be awhile."

The storm piled onto to the snow that's been stuck to branches there since last week's seven inches and the result was snapped branches across much of North Central Massachusetts, many either tearing down or sitting on power lines.

John Loen got plenty of exercise Monday, hand shoveling his Lunenburg driveway. He's lost power, but he's taking it in stride. "We can't complain it's almost the end of January and this is the first real snow we've had," Loen said.

 In Townsend, Walter Murray had the snowblower fired up, but the heavy, slushy snow nearly choked it. Still, he was more worried about all the trees snapping like matchsticks.

"A lot of these old trees a lot of them are going to come down especially around my house," Murray said. "I can already see them. Big branches coming."

Back in Ashby, which claimed the state's snow jackpot last week, April Alden was resigned to living off the generator for a couple days at least. Even though winter got a late start, she's had enough.

"When they're this close together it's exhausting," Alden said. "I like it when it snows you get a break for a couple weeks, and then it snows it again. That I can handle."