Watertown Police Department
Utility poles along Arsenal Street fell during Friday’s Nor’easter.
A stretch of Arsenal Street in Watertown remains closed Sunday, two days after eight utility poles came crashing down in a Nor’easter. Watertown officials hope to have the road reopened soon, but much rewiring work remains.
The poles broke on Friday, and shut down one of the town’s main roadways, but remarkably no one was injured.
New poles have been been installed, and now crews from the Town of Watertown, Eversource, Verizon and others are out putting up new wiring on the new utility poles, said Watertown’s Superintendent of Public Works Gerald Mee.
“It is pretty difficult to estimate when (Arsenal Street) will reopen. There is still a lot of work to do,” said Mee. “Everyone’s goal is to get the street open. We are looking to get it open by Monday morning.”
The poles carry not just electrical and telephone wires, but also cable, fire alarm, and other wires, Mee said.
Many in town have expressed concern and outrage about so many poles coming down at once, and wondered how that could happen. There have also be renewed calls for utility lines to be buried underground, instead of having them on poles.
The utility poles in Watertown are owned by Eversource, the power utility, Mee said, and the town reports damaged or leaning poles to Eversource when they find them. Mee said that having that many utility poles failing at once is very unusual, but said the area had not been considered as at risk.
“It occurred during a substantial wind burst, took down one pole and it was a domino effect,” Mee said. “There was nothing pointing to a failure – no leaning pole, no loose pole.”
Residents have posted photos of the area before the storm showing poles that leaned away from nearby buildings.
Negligence by Watertown @watertownpd@watertownmanews See falling pole 2/20? Now 3/3 Miracle no deaths. More poles leaning bad. Open your eyes on Arsenal. @sitia2476@BostonGlobepic.twitter.com/Ey2a8ekopl
— Daniel Isenberg (@danisen) March 3, 2018
Mee added that just because a pole is not straight up does not mean that it is at risk of falling. Putting utility lines underground is a costly process, Mee said.
As of 10:30 a.m., Sunday, 119 customers in Watertown have no power, according to the Eversource power outage map. This is less than 1 percent of the customers in town. Across Eastern Massachusetts, 76,694, or about 7 percent of Eversource customers, have outages.
Along with the utility poles, five of the Town’s street lights came down. Mee said that is the DPW’s primary focus during the repairs.
I am no expert regarding leaning utility poles but I just cannot believe that a leaning pole is as strong as a straight one especially if the cause of the leaning is due to the weight of the wires and cables placed on them. Even if I am wrong on this they are a blight on our town and should be replaced within some specified timeline.
I’ve seen poles worse than that around here all the time, some supported, some unsupported. I’m sure we’ve all seen the tried and true fix/solution of placing a second shorter pole next to the leaning one, and then bolting them together with a piece of lumber. I’m reasonably certain that I read somewhere that this band-aid of a solution was frowned upon by the town, and the utility company’s were notified to correct the situation, and yet, nothing has been done and they’ve remained like that for years.
How about the pole right at the corner where Bailey Road turns into Bellevue Avenue? It is broken, and is being held together by a “splint” bolted to it — and the splint is also cracking!
This town has talked about putting the utilities on Arsenal St underground for years. They have deemed it too expensive. However, it’s hard to believe that with the millions of dollars in development on Arsenal St, that we couldn’t have negotiated with these projects to get the utilities buried. Another missed opportunity by an inadequately prepared government. But nobody seems to want to talk about the obvious.
OK, let’s look at that block: the sidewalk bump-out was badly installed so that anyone taking a left turn on Louise blocks traffic behind them; the parking was removed for the businesses creating a problem for them; the parking lines across the street are not ADA compliant, so the one handicapped spot doesn’t have enough space; and no one except Councilor Feltner has taken a look at the awful signage all up and down that street (old signs not removed; new ones put up that now contradict old ones; signs that are just wrong, etc). She has not been able to get anywhere on it. But no one wants to go up against the holy unelected triumvirate running the town.
The Town really fumbled the ball on this one, either through the approval process, and/or lack of oversight during the construction phase’s…
Previous article outlining the work being done on Arsenal St./Louise St.
http://www.watertownmanews.com/2017/05/12/find-out-about-major-utility-project-on-north-beacon-arsenal-and-louise-streets
The construction on and around activity Louise St. is a disgrace. It’s been going on since sometime last summer, and from what I understand, is 2 months behind schedule and is still not completed. The sidewalk bump-out you refer to is evidence of incompetence and poor decision making brought about by acquiescing to the demands of the poor neglected “biking community”, and they still want more, which the town council will be more than willing to give them. Think it’s bad now, just wait until the Mt. Auburn St. project gets underway.
On a slightly different note, does anyone know if there are traffic cameras in place along that stretch of Arsenal St. perhaps one on the new traffic signals in front of ‘The Gables’? If so, I’m certain the public would be interested in seeing any video footage that might have been recorded of what transpired during the event.
David, don’t blame bad design and execution on the biking community. That’s on the town. Bike safety is essential as many more folks use bicycles for basic transportation. But bad design and execution is not limited to bike facilities in Watertown. Examples abound. The blame lies with the town.
Marcia, you are quite right. With all of the building going on, the utilities should have been buried. And much of the “mitigation” has been done badly. The town has to take the blame for that.
Will our Town Council Members pressure Eversource or whoever is in control to fix these unsightly, dangerous poles or does someone have to die first? We are paying really really high taxes here and that’s the least we can expect for goodness sake! Why have leaning poles, they are dangerous not to mention ugly.
Note the dates, 2016 and 2010…
Town Council Getting Serious About Removing Double Utility Poles…
http://www.watertownmanews.com/2016/01/13/town-council-getting-serious-about-removing-double-utility-poles/
Town presses Verizon on double poles …
http://archive.boston.com/yourtown/news/watertown/2010/07/watertown_town_council_to_disc.html
The ‘double pole’ issue doesn’t appear to be a factor with the Arsenal St. disaster
( I don’t know if any of the 8 were double poles or not), but what the continued inaction does show, is the towns reluctance and refusal to act on issues concerning
the utility companies with regard to the welfare of the community because it might be too expensive or inconvenient.
Maybe this time it will be a wake up call, but I doubt it.
The extra cables are not from Eversource, Verizon or National Grid.
Our power came back on immediately after the poles fell but all who had Comcast lost their cable & internet. I’m live right down the street & have seen strange trucks some red some white with different logos on them putting up big black cables &taping them they are not the companies I mentioned above, I never heard of them. The poles that fell have been tilted over for a long time, I often wondered why they never tipoed over.
Some of the companies, utilities and possibly even the Town use contractors to do some of their work. That may be the other trucks.
If they moved old poles during the road and sidewalk work, that was just a stupid decision. They should have put in all new poles as these poles degrade over time and moving something old just accelerates the process. I’d expect everyone to be pointing fingers at each other if a proper investigation takes place. This event should never have happened to be begin with.