Weather

High Winds, Rain Wreak Havoc On Norton

Roads were shut down in Norton on Monday due to downed trees and power lines throughout the town.

Roads were shut down in Norton on Monday due to downed trees and power lines throughout the town.
Roads were shut down in Norton on Monday due to downed trees and power lines throughout the town. (Neal McNamara/Patch)

NORTON, MA — Roads were closed throughout Norton on Monday night as rain and heavy winds brought down trees and power lines. Norton police said the area around town hall was shut down as the road was completely blocked by downed trees.

A town hall door was smashed as a large tree took down power lines and street lights on Monday.

Find out what's happening in Nortonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

More than 88,000 customers in Massachusetts were without power as a fierce storm rolled through Monday afternoon. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency reported 88,843 in the dark as of 5:17 p.m., the tail end of what was said to be the peak wind gusts. Communities south and west of Boston and south of Worcester are the hardest hit on a per-population scale.

More than half of Millis and nearly all of West Brookfield are in the dark, while thousands more in cities just north of Boston are in similar positions. The strongest recorded wind gust was at the Blue Hills Observatory in Milton, where an unofficial reading hit 87 miles per hour.

Find out what's happening in Nortonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Earlier in the afternoon, Gov. Charlie Baker said health care at the state's hospitals shouldn't be interrupted in the event of outages.

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