North Shore Nor'Easter: Trees Down, Power Out, Schools Closed

UPDATED: 12:10 p.m.

SALEM, MA — High winds brought down trees and wires all along the North Shore late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning — knocking out power to many and causing some school closures.

As of 9:45 a.m. Wednesday morning, more than 490,000 were without power statewide as wind gusts reached as high as 94 miles per hour on Martha's Vineyard. That included 3,004 without power in Beverly, 1,650 in Salem, 428 in Swampscott, and sporadic outages in Danvers, Marblehead and Peabody.

Beverly was one of many coastal communities across the state to cancel school on Wednesday.

All Marblehead Public Schools were also canceled about 7:30 a.m. Marblehead Public Schools called a two-hour delay at one point before shutting everything down for the day amid an overnight power outage townwide and several blocked roads.

"Please do not venture out if you don't need to," Marblehead police said about 5 a.m. "Assume all wires that are down are live. Tree and electric crews are out working."

In Peabody, police said a telephone pole and trees were down in the area of Washington Street by Lynn and Lynnfield streets and Allen Lane.

"Crews are working to resolve, but please avoid the area. Use Forest, Lowell, King, Ellsworth to get your student to Higgins Middle School," Peabody police said. "Students won’t be marked late."

Peabody police said Washington Street was reopened about 8:30 a.m.

Danvers reported an outage impacting Purchase, Ash, Lawrence, Fowler, Sylvan, Holden, and surrounding streets including Danvers Town Hall, impacting 476 customers.

While the town said the power there was restored there by about 7:40 a.m., a large tree down on Locust Street knocked out power to Valley, Lakeview and Robin Hill Roads. The town said that outage was about 133 customers and could last until well into the afternoon.

Stanley Elementary School in Swampscott was closed Wednesday after storm damage prevented vehicle access to the school.

All morning classes were canceled on the South Campus of Salem State University.

The free Salem "Stop the Spread" coronavirus testing site is closed on Wednesday.

The Salem Armory Regional Visitor Center and Salem Maritime will be closed Wednesday because of the storm. Restrooms will not be open at either site.

Check back with Patch for updates throughout the storm and send any storm-related pictures — if it is safe to take them — to Scott Souza at scott.souza@patch.com for publication.