Several thousand Islanders had their lights come back on in the last 24 hours as the Island’s electricity provider worked to restore power in the wake of this week’s blizzard.
As of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, about 2,700 customers on the Island were without power, including some that had been in the dark since early Monday morning. At the height of the store, more than 10,000 homes and businesses were without power, and there were still nearly 8,000 on Tuesday morning.
By 4:30 p.m., on Thursday afternoon, power was almost back to the entire Island.
“We’re starting to get the power back, which is the nice thing,” Edgartown fire deputy chief Andrew Kelly told the Gazette Wednesday morning at the warming shelter at the Edgartown School. “This morning they were able to actually get the north side and south side of town here on.”
The largest number of remaining outages were in Edgartown, with large clusters in Katama and on Chappaquiddick.
Mr. Kelly said a utility pole had caught fire near the Katama General Store, and a flagpole came down that took the power out for Chappy. Another utility pole also caught fire in the state forest that feeds Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven.
Crews from Eversource and the towns have been working around the clock to get roads clear and make it possible to do repairs.
“This is the highest volume for calls in Edgartown that I’ve ever had,” Mr. Kelly said. “I held the record at 20 a few years ago and this was like 40-something.”
About 12 people stayed overnight at the Edgartown warming shelter overnight, according to Edgartown police Chief Chris Dolby. About 60 had come through the day to charge phones and get something to eat.
Lorri Hart, a Chappaquiddick resident, was one of the people who had sought refuge at the Edgartown warming center. She had been without power since 8 a.m. Monday morning.
“It’s just too cold. I mean, I can handle 24 hours. I’m okay with 24 hours of no heat,” she said. “But after that, you can’t tolerate it.”
Chappaquiddick had its own warming center for a time, but it had run out of backup power from its solar panels after losing power with the rest of the island.
West Tisbury’s emergency shelter at the town library also remained open overnight, providing heat, food, Wi-Fi and a place to charge electronics. On Wednesday, Oak. Bluffs also opened its town hall to residents looking to get out of the chill.
Chief Dolby warned that power could be coming on and off for people as Eversource continues to work on its infrastructure.
“The power is coming back sporadically,” he said. “There’s places that it’s back on now and holding, but then there’s a situation where it comes back on for a little bit, but then the power company discovers more issues further down the line that have to be addressed so then they have to shut it back down.”
Some businesses had started to reopen, but many remained closed, given the ongoing cleanup efforts. Extended power outages can prove tricky for restaurants and grocers especially, as they try to keep food stored at the right temperatures.
Offshore Ale in Oak Bluffs was dealing with the issue.
“Without power we have no refrigeration to keep our food cold,” the brewpub wrote on social media.
Neighboring Reliable Market, owned by the Pacheco family, ended up stepping in to provide aid.
“The Pachecos generously offered space in their refrigerated trailer for our inventory, otherwise we would have lost it all,” Offshore wrote. “Cheers to Bob, Donna and their family.”
See more storm photos here.
This article appears in February 27, 2026.
It’s not called Reliable for nothing!
Some of us are still without power . It is disappointing to learn that, despite several calls to the non emergency number , and 3 ‘live’ calls plus a dozen text messages to Eversource, the crew on the road were unaware that we had no power for 5 days and were still out, and are elderly. I feel we on Chappy were abandoned by Edgartown.