Friday Storm Update: Power Restored To Thousands In RI | Patch PM

In the wake of a powerful storm that knocked down trees and power lines across Rhode Island, the lights are back on in thousands of homes on Friday afternoon. As of 3 p.m., 4,946 residents were still without power, down from nearly 7,600 earlier in the day.

National Grid spokesperson Ted Kresse said high winds "presented challenges" in Thursday's restoration efforts.

"When winds are above 35 mph our crews cannot go up in buckets to work on restoration needs," Kresse said in a statement. "And while we were able to restore power to some throughout the day, we continued to see new outages continue with the wind."

In the immediate wake of the storm, more than 33,000 Rhode Island residents were without power. Across the state, downed trees and limbs made roads across the state impassable, especially in South County. During the storm, peak wind gusts hit 70 mph in Westerly, and some areas saw as much as four inches of rain within just a few hours.

Despite the high number of outages, Kresse said National Grid was prepared to handle the damage.

"As always we had a solid plan in place," he said. "Some of the winds were more extreme than forecasts indicated, and the high winds continuing yesterday were a challenge, but we’ve made good headway last night and today but will continue to grind away until we get the last customer restored."

Check the status of an outage using National Grid's interactive outage map.