Power Remains Out in Many Dedham Neighborhoods

Hurricane Irene seemed to take forever to get to Dedham Sunday, but when it did - despite a tropical storm downgrade - it split trees, ripped apart power lines and knocked out power to more than 2,000.

At one point, Dedham had 2,300 power outages as of Sunday afternoon, Town Administrator William Keegan said, however some homes had power restored by Sunday evening.

Residents reported lights out on Riverdale neighborhood streets such as Pine Street and Eaton Avenue, and on Oakdale streets like Lincoln and Dale streets.

"There's no way of telling when electricity will be on for all residents," Keegan said in a phone interview Sunday evening. "[NSTAR] doesn't know themselves."

Police and fire personnel spent most of the day responding to trees that blocked entire streets or live power lines arcing in the roadway, causing major safety concerns. At one point, Dedham Police blocked off Curve Street from Oak to Maverick streets for a wire that caught fire.

"There are a good 20 streets that are effected right now," the town administrator said.

Blocked streets will make it difficult for NSTAR to access power lines to restore electricity, Keegan said.

Seniors living on O'Neil Drive also lost power, but no one needed to be transported to the hospital for medical attention, Keegan said.

"We will move them, if necessary, but we're hoping that gets sorted out," Keegan said.

In fact, no injuries were reported in Dedham, he said.

A tree in front of Kevin Conley's Walnut Street home succumbed to the strong winds, split and crashed through his white picket fence and blocked the road.

"I was kind of surprised that the tree went down because it didn't seem that windy," Conley said. "Nobody was on the road. They were lucky."

Conley said it was fortunate no one was walking on Walnut Street at the time.

As far as cleaning up the roads of debris , limbs and leaves, Keegan estimated it could take up to several weeks, but the town will work with residents to speed up the process.

"We're trying to figure out a way to get the brush chipped and cut so we can get it out of there. That is the big push right now," Keegan said.