News

High winds knock out power to more 18,000 Vermont homes, businesses

BRATTLEBORO — Strong winds, with gusts as high as 85 miles per hour, raced through Vermont Monday night, knocking down utility poles and cutting power to 18,300 homes and businesses.

By Tuesday morning, winds were winding down and Green Mountain Power crews had restored power to more than 12,700 customers. GMP has called in support crews from around Vermont and restored power to nearly all its customers by late Tuesday night.

“Crews have been working throughout the night restoring power to thousands of customers affected by the wind storm,” said Dorothy Schnure, spokesperson for Green Mountain Power, said in a news release. “The worst of the wind is over from the first wave of this storm, and we expect to be able to restore power to the remaining [customers] who have already lost power by the end of the day.”

Customers in the southeastern areas of Vermont were the hardest hit, with the bulk of the outages in the Springfield, Royalton, and Brattleboro areas, although all areas of the state experienced damage to varying degrees.

Green Mountain Power sent additional crews to hardest-hit areas to repair damage and restore power as quickly as possible.

Vermont utilities that were not hit with damage also helped GMP crews restore power. Burlington Electric Department and Vermont Electric Co-op both sent crews to help.

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