Spring Storm Causes Closures, Outages in Berkshire County
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A spring storm brought rain and snow to the county along with service outages.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the region saw wind, snow, sleet, and rain and is expected to get another round this evening, albeit not as significant.
Spectrum customers began experiencing internet and cable outages on Wednesday afternoon, which were restored by the evening, and Eversource customers also experienced power outages.
Around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Pittsfield's Commissioner of Public Works and Utilities Ricardo Morales said the city had a good response despite not having all contractors available.
"We had five or six locations with trees down, all overnight, and were cleared timely," he wrote, also reporting that there wasn't any noteworthy damages to the roads.
Due to the inclement weather, Pittsfield's trash and recycling pickup was canceled for the day.
"Our mains and neighborhood streets are in good shape," Morales reported. "We still have crews around to deal with minor leftover plowing. We are anticipating another round of snow up to a half-inch towars tomorrow morning."
Spectrum customers experienced internet and cable outages for several hours on Wednesday, which the Berkshire Edge reported was due to a fiber break in the network as a result of physical damage incurred during the storm.
Vice President of Communications Lara Pritchard told the publication that teams had to wait until the area was cleared of downed commercial power lines and deemed safe before addressing the damage.
The internet outage affected restaurants and businesses, as many rely on it for their point-of-sale systems.
Zinky's Pub in Dalton notified customers via Facebook on Wednesday that it was open but will only be able to accept cash due to the outage.
"Sorry for any inconvenience yesterday as our internet and phone lines went down (and) we couldn't take any to go orders. We are back up today running normal. Thank you all for your patience and adjusting as we had to adjust yesterday to make it work," the pub wrote in a post on Thursday.
"Thanks also to our staff who worked together and made it all work, We were able to serve everyone who came out to the pub in the crappy weather yesterday. Sometimes we don't appreciate technology until we lose it. Thanks again everyone who made a tough situation manageable!"
Dottie's Coffee Lounge/ Dorothy's in Pittsfield posted that they are "open even though the internet is not" on Wednesday and had live music in the evening.
Mostly all Berkshire County schools were closed on Thursday as well as a number of municipal meetings and events. The Adams Town Hall did not open until noon.
Tags: snow & ice,
