Cape Cod Tornado Leaves Power Outages, Trail Of Damage In Harwich, Yarmouth
YARMOUTH (CBS) – Power is expected to be restored for most on Cape Cod by Friday evening after a tornado tore through the region.
The EF-1 tornado with winds as high as 110 miles per hour touched down in Yarmouth just after noon Tuesday and then hit Harwich. There was also plenty of straight-line wind damage, but no injuries were reported.
The National Weather Service hopes to release more details on the path, width and length of the tornado as investigators survey the area.
The agency said the greatest amount of damage was in Harwich, where 90-percent of the town lost power during the storm and a state of emergency was declared there.
Photos: Cape Cod Storm Damage
The storm brought down trees and power lines in several neighborhoods and even ripped the roof off of the Cape Sands Inn in Yarmouth.
"It's very hard at this point to calculate how much debris and how much damage has been created by this. . . it's going to be several days," Gov. Charlie Baker said after getting an update from first responders in Harwich.
Check: Massachusetts Power Outages
As many as 50,000 customers lost power Tuesday on the Cape, most of them in Harwich, Chatham and Dennis. That was down to about 29,000 Wednesday afternoon. Harwich police said they've been told by Eversource that powerful will be fully restored by 6 p.m. Friday.
Some progress is being made to restore power, but it is a two-step process. Before work can be done on downed power lines, crews have to go into the impacted neighborhoods to make sure Eversource teams can get in safely.
"If the power company can't get into these neighborhoods to restore power, we're nowhere," Harwich Fire Chief Norman Clarke said.
And it's getting to the power lines that can be a problem. Crews from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation spent Wednesday clearing downed trees and debris.
"Because of the extensive damage to the trees, utility poles and our lines and our distribution system, it was difficult to access some of these places," said Reid Lamberty, of Eversource.
Dennis-Yarmouth High School is being used as an emergency shelter for anyone who needs it.
