Middletown Assesses Hurricane Irene's Aftermath and Power Crisis

Exactly what kind of shape is Middletown in after knocked our lights out?

Here’s the rundown:

Power Crisis

As 300,000 Rhode Island National Grid customers remained without power Sunday night, Aquidneck Island’s three communities were the only ones in the state to have 100-percent power outages, according to Middletown’s Emergency Management Director and Fire Department Chief Ronald Doire.

“I heard other communities at the conference call all reporting partial outages. Aquidneck Island is by far worse off than anyone else in the state with 100 percent,” Doire said.

The question on everyone’s mind is how long island residents will go without power, as estimates have ranged from one to six days.

On Aquidneck Island, crews are expected to begin working in Portsmouth Monday morning, according to Doire.

On Sunday night, he echoed what state and National Grid officials also said Sunday—better estimates will be known once the work begins late Sunday night and Monday morning to restore power throughout the state.

“I was on a conference call today with the Governor and he described the outage as ‘catastrophic,’ and that is very concerning to me,” Doire said. He also added, “Looking forward, the longer the power is off, the more critical the situation becomes.”

Typically when power outages occur, they’re more localized and National Grid is able to bring in independent contractors from all over the northeast to help speed up the restoration of power to customers, he noted.

However in this case, Hurricane Irene knocked out power up and down the east coast, spreading that extra help extra thin.

Moreover, National Grid crews were unable to respond to the power outages as they occurred Sunday due to the dangerous hurricane force winds. The crews had to wait until the storm had passed before they were able to start working on restoring power anywhere.

The lack of power can lead to and increase the likelihood of any number of emergencies, Doire noted, from more collisions due to non-working traffic lights to the inability to call 9-1-1 without working cell phones, or persons with medical assistive devices losing power.

“Many people use oxygen and that’s powered by electricity. We want those people to know that they can come to our shelter. Our shelter has power, it has water, and it has food,” Doire said. 

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Middletown’s evacuated areas

By and large, Middletown weathered Hurricane Irene fairly well. There were no storm-related deaths or serious injuries, the flooding that occurred in the Wave Avenue Triangle business district was relatively minor, and no major property damage was reported, Doire noted.

“We were very satisfied with the preparations for the storm,” Doire said Sunday night. Referring to the mandatory evacuations of the and the neighborhood, which affected about 30 businesses and residences, Doire said. “The warnings we gave were appropriate.”

In each case, the powerful storm surges crashed over walls and brought minor flooding, but kicked up a lot of sand, rocks, small boulders, foam, water, and other large debris onto the streets within the flood plains.

The floodwaters that pooled where Memorial and Wave Avenue meet quickly receded on Sunday.

On Sachuest Point, Second Beach parking lot looked like a shallow pond on Sunday afternoon. Both Sachuest Point Road and lower Third Beach Road also were flooded with about 2-3 inches of water.

Sachuest Point Road was littered with large rocks and debris.

Third Beach Road had shallow pools and newly formed sand bars.

Aside from that, the three boats left behind in the remained secured and little destruction was seen amongst the beach structures. A parking attendant shed at Second Beach showed loose roofing shingles but little other damage was visible at the beach facility. Even the picnic canopy at Second Beach appeared fine.

The Second Beach Campground also appeared sound and intact.

The storm itself brought very little rain but brought heavy winds of up to 75 mph at its peak.

“Our two biggest issues have been downed trees and limbs and loss of power,” Doire said.

Emergency calls

There were no significant emergency response calls during the hurricane, Doire said.

There were no water rescues and police responded to two reports of people in the water at Easton’s Beach, Doire said.

“There was one boogie boarder that we asked to leave the water and there was one call where some thought they saw someone in the water, but it turned out to be two people looking at the surf,” Doire said.

Mobile phone disruptions

Besides the loss of power, many area residents experienced cell phone disruptions. Customers of T-Mobile lost service and Nextel Sprint had intermittent service throughout the day. Other networks experienced unusually long data delays and increased call dropouts.

Traffic Signals

With no power anywhere on Aquidneck Island, morning commuters will encounter no working stoplights anywhere on Aquidneck Island.

By Sunday night, the Middletown Emergency Management Team had not assigned police details to direct traffic.

Due to the continued storm-related duties, the Middletown Police Department has no available personnel to man the intersections, Doire said.

“It’s a good idea not to be on the roads Monday if you absolutely don’t have to be. We are just urging extreme caution at this point,” Doire said.