JIM WIGGS
WESTFIELD – Superstorm Juno didn’t quite live up to the advanced billing here and Westfield Emergency Management Director James Wiggs said that the city was in good shape yesterday afternoon. He attributed that to the cooperation of residents of city departments in handling the storm.
“We had a conference call this morning and it was all quiet with police and fire in the city. The DPW is doing one helluva job on the roads,” Wiggs said yesterday. “People stayed off the roads and people weren’t out there doing anything stupid.”
“For a storm of this size,” he said. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been if it was an icy snow.”
“Nothing has been going on with Public Health. We didn’t have to open the shelter,” said Wiggs, adding that the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has over 8,600 beds in rescue shelters around the state and that only 142 people were occupying those shelters as of last night.
The biggest issue facing the Bay State currently has been power outages that have plagued Boston’s south shore and Cape Cod.
Wiggs said he has kept a close eye on those situations through updates from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, or MEMA.
“I think there are about 35,000 people without power down there, but we had no power outages here,” said Wiggs.
Aaron Bean, operations superintendent for the Westfield Gas & Electric Company concurred with Wiggs, adding that the powdery snowflakes dumped on greater Westfield helped keep power outages at bay.
“The storm really didn’t seem to hit us,” he said, adding that the G&E hasn’t been in contact with any power companies in Berkshire County but that the municipal companies in nearby cities of Chicopee and Holyoke didn’t make any requests for mutual aid.
“I don’t recall them mentioning anything about any outages, either,” he said.
Prescilla Ress, spokesperson for Western Massachusetts Electric Company, confirmed that WMEco was “pretty pleased” with a lack of outages caused by the storm.
She added that WMECO sent 50 crewmembers to the Plymouth County town of Marshfield at 9:30 a.m. yesterday to help with efforts to restore power there.
“In addition to our buckets, we’re also bringing in some snowmobiles so we can get to some of those hard-to-reach locations off-road and start doing some patrolling in that area,” said Ress.
She added that NStar, WMECO’s parent company, directs WMEco’s crews throughout the region.
“Depending how restorations go, they may move them through the territory, but right now, that is where our 50 are headed,” said Ress.
