A power outage swept through Concord, Massachusetts on Wednesday morning, knocking out electricity to more than a quarter of the town and leaving some traffic lights dark enough that state troopers had to step in and direct cars by hand. As of 11:18 a.m., the Concord Municipal Light Plant's outage map showed 31.3% of customers without power, and crews were working to restore service.
Traffic Lights Go Dark, Troopers Step In
The scale of the disruption was significant enough that it reportedly began affecting traffic signals around town, according to concordbridge.org. State police troopers were called in to help with traffic control at Route 2's intersections with Walden Street and Sudbury Road as the outage disrupted the normal flow of signals. The outage was also covered by NBC Boston, which reported that Concord police described residents as experiencing a town-wide power outage and posted about the situation on Facebook around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Concord police asked residents not to call 911 or the police department to report the outage itself, so that emergency lines could stay clear for actual emergencies. The police station itself went onto backup power during the event, per the same account from concordbridge.org.
Crews Work to Restore Power, Cause Still Uncertain
The Concord Municipal Light Plant was actively working to address the outage. Light Plant Director Jason Bulger said the cause of the outage was not yet certain, though he noted it could have been a power protection device that tripped somewhere along the system.
Per Concord police, no further status update was available at the time of their Facebook post, and the department reiterated that residents should not call police or 911 specifically to report the outage. The NBC Boston report noted that the Concord Municipal Light Plant was actively working to address the situation as crews assessed the extent of the damage.
For now, residents hit by the outage are left waiting on word from crews working to track down the source of the trouble and restore service across town. Anyone registered with the light plant's alert system can text OUT to 64743 to report an outage or STAT to 64743 to check restoration status, according to the Town of Concord's emergency guidance.
