Power Outage Hits Downtown Nantucket On Christmas Stroll
Jason Graziadei •
A power outage struck downtown Nantucket late Saturday morning just as the 50th Christmas Stroll event was getting underway, leaving dozens of businesses and vendors scrambling to serve customers without electricity. By evening, half of the core downtown district remained without power as National Grid utility crews worked to resolve the issue, and numerous restaurants were forced to close on one of the busiest days of the year.
The outage persisted for roughly 27 hours - from 10:20 a.m. on Saturday through 1:30 p.m. on Sunday - before power was restored. National Grid identified the problem as two sections of underground electric cable that failed and needed to be replaced, requiring the utility company to send specialized crews and equipment to Nantucket by ferry late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. But by the time the lights came back on, a weekend that is typically one of the most profitable of the year for downtown businesses had been wiped out. One downtown business owner estimated the losses could climb into the millions of dollars for the establishments that were impacted.
While some retail outlets managed to do cash-only sales or complete transactions by smartphone apps, the downtown restaurants that lost power canceled hundreds of reservations and, with no lights or refrigeration, were required by the town to close their doors at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
"Saturday of Stroll is the most important and best day of the year for our restaurant community," said Andrea Solimeo, the co-owner of Ventuno and Pizzeria Gemelle, both of which were forced to close on Saturday. "We spend the whole shoulder season working towards this one weekend. We prep for weeks; we decorate as a team, we get our favorite staff friends and family to come out here and spread the Stroll cheer. It is our chance as a restaurant to make this special, to say thank you to our loyal customers, to thank our employees, and to show up for the town of Nantucket. Not being able to participate and do what we do was absolutely crushing. We invest so much into making this weekend happen, it will be very difficult to overcome this loss."
When the outage first occurred late Saturday morning, more than 1,400 customers lost power from Main Street, north to Brant Point, and west to Cliff Road. Initially, National Grid stated that the outage would last no longer than two hours. And while power was restored to Brant Point relatively quickly, half of the downtown core district remained without power, and by 2 p.m., the utility company had acknowledged the outage would last far longer than it initially expected.
“We are working to identify the reasons behind the cable failure, and an investigation is currently underway," National Grid spokesman Bob Kievra told the Current on Sunday.
Due to safety concerns and the lack of refrigeration, a total of 15 restaurants and bars were required by the town to close at 4:30 p.m. Several restaurants told the Current they were required by the Nantucket Health Department to throw away existing food inventory because it could not be properly refrigerated during the outage.
Meanwhile, at the 80-room Faraway hotel on Centre Street, owned by Blue Flag Partners, staff spent Saturday relocating guests to its sister property, The Beachside on North Beach Street.
"Most people have been understanding and cheerful, thankfully," said hotel staff member LeighAnne McDonald.
In total, nearly 50 island businesses, from lodging establishments to retail outlets, along with bars and restaurants, were impacted by the outage. And they weren't the only ones, either. At both Sustainable Nantucket's Farmers & Artisans Market at the Nantucket Yacht Club and the Nantucket Lighthouse School's annual Yuletide Fair fundraiser at the White Elephant, vendors were left with no way to charge customers for items unless they had cash.
"After several hours in the dark with all credit card options and Venmo not working, it made for a very difficult day for the 50-plus local vendors at the Nantucket Yacht Club," said Taylor Cullen, the owner/creator of Small Town Girl. "Grateful the crews were able to get the power back on for the last hour or two of the show."
As a group of carolers sang Christmas songs at the top of Main Street Saturday evening, streetlights were out along the north side of the cobblestones, and business owners were putting signs up on their doors, letting customers know that they would be closed for the night. The Nantucket Police and Fire departments were both responding to the downtown area to help manage the situation and provide guidance to establishments.
But the lack of concrete information about the outage left many frustrated.
"As a management team, we were left scrambling to get information to allow us to communicate reasonably with staff and guests," said Orla LaScola, co-owner of The Proprietors, which lost power, and Black Eyed Susan's, which did not. "While being directed to National Grid's website to access the only available 'updates,' the information there was misleading and incorrect. We appreciate the teams that were sent to assist, but we are still at 12.40 m. on Sunday without any power and have no indication when it could be restored, which is a massive breakdown from National Grid."
The Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors and hosts the Christmas Stroll event, was still taking stock of the impacts of the outage on Sunday.
"Yesterday’s power outage continues to impact our small business community today as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stroll," Chamber executive director Peter Burke said in a statement on Sunday. "Firstly, while we recognize this has had a negative impact on our business community, we sincerely appreciate the town for their efforts to ensure public safety during the outage, and to our fellow community members who have been working overnight and into today to restore power. The situation is still unfolding, and business owners are rightfully focused on adapting to the current conditions. In the coming days, we will continue to explore any and all options to guide businesses in any recovery efforts."
Earlier in the day, Sean Dew, the owner of the TownPool store on Main Street, had moved inventory out onto the sidewalk and was doing transactions on his cell phone or taking cash if customers had it.
At Nantucket Pharmacy, pharmacist Ken Knutti was working in the dark behind the pharmacy counter and said they were allowing customers to pay by cash or simply writing down their name and purchase and telling them to come back to pay later (if they knew the customer).
"We as a hospitality community will have some major work to do to build back up confidence in this festival," LaScola said. "We are so grateful for friends and fellow business owners who reached out to see if they could help us in any way. The level of concern was humbling."