Occasional high winds are a mixed blessing. Just as frequent small wildfires out west serve to prevent the catastrophic events caused by a buildup of fuel, frequent high winds here on the islands serve to keep the trees pruned.

After the dozen hours of 70-mile per hour winds punctuated by 90-mile per hour gusts a couple of weeks ago, there are a lot fewer branches poised to take down the power lines. Ice storm season is right around the corner. No matter how much the limbs around the main line of electric wires are kept at bay, somewhere there’s always a whole tree ready to topple over.

Back before the new under-harbor electric conduits were installed, Chappy depended on a very old cable containing three wires. It lay mostly exposed on the bed of the channel, where it had to endure the constant erosive effects of moving sand and gravel as well as the impact of boat anchors. One of the underwater wires finally gave up the ghost, leaving only two wires under the channel to feed the three overhead wires along the main road.

The electric company had a simple solution. Right in front of Bob Marshall’s house, the now-dead center overhead wire was severed and a jumper wire attached from the still-live outer two wires. One fed the center wire in the direction of the ferry, the other in the direction of the firehouse. That arrangement remained in place until the new wires were threaded through the under-harbor conduits.

One stormy night, the fire department was called out to investigate a pine tree sparking against the wires at Mytoi. We concluded that it would eventually break the wire. We asked the communications center to have the electric company turn off the power momentarily so that we could safely remove the tree.

When we called back to say that they could turn the power back on, we were informed that the company crew had headed up to Chilmark and would be back in maybe a couple of hours. When I left my house, the lights were merely blinking. When I returned, there were no lights at all. My daughter Nearess said, “Nice work, Dad!”

The Chappy Ferry steering committee will meet regularly this month and next on the first and third Tuesdays at 5 p.m. Find the link on the town website in the agendas tab.