By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
The first storm of the season combined with it taking place on Thanksgiving called for extra personnel to be on duty, but police and emergency personnel in Newport and Claremont said there were no major incidents, despite it being a busy day with slippery road conditions.
“There were a lot of motor vehicles off the road,” Newport Police Chief Alex Lee said. “No serious injuries, but one with minor injuries. We had two crashes into telephone poles so there was some pretty serious damage there. The majority were slide offs that needed to be pulled out, or hitting a guard rail.”
Lee said the calls started coming in around 8 a.m., with the two accidents of note taking place at 11:38 p.m. and 12:25 p.m. where vehicles crashed into utility poles due to the snowy and icy conditions.
“There was kind of a spurt of minor accidents between 8 and 10 a.m., and then it turned to rain and the roadways improved for a while, and then another spurt between noon and 3. So it was steady.”
The fire department fortunately also had a fairly standard day, and Lee said there were no incidents to report that caused significant injuries. He did say that some power outages may have put a damper on some peoples’ cooking, however. There were fortunately no snafus regarding Thanksgiving cooking fires to report, Lee said.
“It was busy throughout the day, and that is expected with the first storm,” he said. “Eversource was out there throughout the day, and they arrived at both telephone pole crashes within 20 minutes. The larger outage we had in the north Newport area, they were on scene almost immediately.”
At 8:17 a.m. the Newport Police Department posted on Facebook that multiple vehicles were off the road that morning, with the post accompanied by a photo of a vehicle off the road in snowy conditions.
“Newport Police, Fire and Public Works are out responding to multiple vehicles off the road and working to treat the roadways. If you have to travel today, please reduce your speed,” the post stated.
The Newport Fire Department posted on Facebook at about 1 p.m. that the calls had started to ramp up. The post stated, “We are currently experiencing multiple vehicle accidents, and due to inadequate staffing levels, our ambulance is unavailable to respond as it is presently transporting a patient to the hospital.”
According to a post at the same time, crews responded to a motor vehicle accident with a broken utility pole on South Main Street in the area of Coon Brook Road. This caused power outages at homes in the area. Officials advised the public to proceed with caution in the area, as members of the department were working in the roadway.
“The road conditions are worsening. Allow yourself extra time for travel to ensure to arrive to your destination safely,” the post stated.
A firefighter at the station said on Friday that there was nothing major to report, but there was nobody available for an official comment.
Claremont Fire Lt. Scott Messer had a similar report, saying the department responded to five calls but none were significant.
“We had a couple trees on wires, two fire related calls and a medical call, but that was it,” Messer said. “A box alarm and a couple other things. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Lee was on duty working on Thanksgiving and said due to the storm, they brought on a little more personnel to work than a usual holiday. He said the extra manpower was ramped up to make sure they could keep up with the call volume and be prepared for anything that may come their way.
“Normally on a holiday we run a skeleton crew but because of the storm I worked the road, one of my detectives came in and worked the road,” Lee said. “We had probably four officers on working patrol when normally during the day we’d have one or two. The fire department had six or seven people out on those utility pole calls when they’d normally have one or two.”
