Underground Fire On Cabot In Beverly Causes Major Disruptions

BEVERLY, MA — An electrical fire underground on Cabot Street Thursday morning had a ripple effect that lasted the entire day, causing traffic delays, power outages and phone outages including at City Hall and the fire department.

It wasn't until 8:30 p.m. police announced that National Grid had finally restored the power for the more than 650 people reportedly still without power after the 8 a.m. fire.

"Still please check on your neighbors and let us know if someone is in distress," tweeted Beverly Police Chief, warning that temperatures would be below 0 tonight.

Earlier he'd announced that anyone needing to warm up could go hang out at the Senior Center on Colon Street until 10 p.m.

Earlier National Grid had estimated power would go back on around 6 p.m.

This morning, with temperatures in the single digits, firefighters put out the fire in underground electrical vault and had cleared the area by 9 a.m., and reopened Cabot Street, but two major things were still not working for many residents and businesses in the area. Phones and electricity.

The phones at city hall and at the fire department went dead. And some nine hours later parts of Cabot Street all the way to Gloucester Crossing still have no power.

National Grid expected to have those 500 customers without power back on by 6 p.m., according to Beverly Police earlier this afternoon. And Mayor Cahill was slated to make a call to the effected areas shortly (though with city hall phones not working, it's not quite clear how)

City hall phones were not working and the Fire Department lines were also effected, police said noting that if anyone should have an emergency they should Dial 911. If you need to get a message to the Fire Department call police at 978-922-1212, which still seems to have working phone lines.

Check out the National Grid outage map below as it looked at 5:10 p.m.

Photo courtesy Beverly Fire Department