Martha’s Vineyard was largely unscathed Saturday as Hurricane Lee passed to the east of Nantucket.
The Island saw some rain and winds, but only experienced a handful of power outages and canceled ferries Friday night into Saturday.
“We did not have any flooding that I know about and there was no significant damage that I have been appraised of yet,” said Nelson Wirtz, the Oak Bluffs fire chief and leader in the Dukes County Emergency Management Association.
The Steamship Authority canceled some of the Friday evening trips to the Vineyard and several Saturday morning boats.
Power outages were sparse. Eversource reported outages on Chappaquiddick Friday and in Oak Bluffs Saturday. Chief Wirtz said 10 extra Eversource crews were stationed on the Island, meaning most outages were rectified quickly.
Emergency management officials and other Island leaders had a 9 a.m. call to discuss the storm and no one reported any major problems, Chief Wirtz said.
“Just all minor stuff,” he said.
A shelter was set up at St. Andrew’s Episocpal Church in Edgartown Friday night for unhoused people. The shelter had a capacity of 10 people and only about four took advantage of it, according to Mr. Wirtz.
The National Weather Service said the storm, which was downgraded to a post-tropical storm, was directly east of Cape Cod at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday, and it was expected to continue north towards Nova Scotia.
The Cape and Nantucket bore more of the storm’s brunt. Both Vineyard Haven and Edgartown had less than an inch of rain by Saturday morning, though gusty conditions were expected for the rest of Saturday and the Island remained under a tropical storm warning.
The strongest wind on the Island was reported at 48 miles per hour, well below the 62 miles per hour wind recorded in Dennis on Cape Cod.
By 9 a.m., a line of Derby fishermen had casted out on the jetties by Big Bridge in Oak Bluffs. As the tide rushed out from the pond, few bluefish were biting.
Mocha Mott’s in Vineyard Haven was abuzz with activity and even the moisture-prone Five Corners was unflooded.
Edgartown kept residents updated through its news text alert system and a storm watch page on its website. Norton Point remains closed to oversand vehicles due to a high surf warning that began Friday. South Beach is also under a high surf warning – although that did not deter a few adventurous bathers Friday evening.
“It was quieter than I think we all expected,” Edgartown police chief Bruce McNamee told the Gazette in a phone call Saturday.
Although the storm’s impacts had been underwhelming, Chief McNamee said that preparation for events like these are still valuable practice for the town.
“These are opportunities to assess what we have, what resources are available to us…and what we don’t have so we’re ready when the time comes,” Chief McNamee said.
The damp weather did scare off some vendors at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market, but several were camped out inside the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Hall Saturday to sell their goods.
Judith Leggett, a farmer at Fielder Family Farms, said she was out picking produce early Saturday morning prior to the start of the market.
“This is not much of anything,” she said as customers passed her stand. “It was trending down towards nothing."
Ethan Buchanan-Valenti, the market manager, said the wind forced the market indoors for the second time this season. Not a lot of customers were at the market when it opened at 9 a.m., but things started to look up later in the morning.
“They’re slowly making their way here,” he said. “It’s not that bad.”
Brooke Kushwaha and Thomas Humphrey contributed to this report.
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