High winds blamed for one death, traffic snarls, power outages

BOSTON --High winds ripped across Massachusetts on Wednesday, knocking out power to tens of thousands, snarling traffic and killing an elderly woman on Cape Cod when a downed tree crashed onto her car.

Gusts exceeded 60 mph around the Boston area early Wednesday afternoon, including an 85 mph gust at the Blue Hills Observatory in Milton.

An 80-year-old woman was killed in Yarmouth when a tree hit her car as she was driving on Route 6A, police said. The woman was not identified because her family had not yet been told of her death.

At the time wind gusts were recorded as high as 38 miles an hour at nearby Barnstable Municipal Airport.

The worst weather-related traffic problem was on Route 1 in Saugus, which was closed for almost three hours in both directions because of a downed utility pole. Downed trees and power lines also closed Route 20 in Sudbury for several hours.

The wind knocked out power to Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, forcing a judge to postpone the trial of a Quincy dominatrix accused of manslaughter after one of her clients allegedly died of a heart attack while tied to a replica of a medieval torture device.

Attorney Philip Slotnick had an unrelated pretrial conference canceled because of the outage. He said he was going to use the time to check on his house because his neighbor called him to report that numerous shingles had blown off.

"What am I going to do about it?" said Slotnick, who lives in the West Roxbury section of Boston. "I'm not worried. We all have insurance."

At Logan International Airport, incoming flights were delayed more than 2 1/2 hours by the weather at midafternoon, according a Federal Aviation Administration Web site

More than 100,000 customers lost power in outages around the state at the height of the storm.

National Grid reported 65,000 customers affected, mostly in the southeastern part of the state and the Merrimack Valley. By 9 p.m. 12,000 customers were still without power, and officials said some areas of the South Shore would remain in the dark until late Thursday night.

About 50,000 NStar customers lost service, primarily north and west of Boston. By 9:30 p.m., 14,000 customers were waiting for electricity to be restored.

Western Massachusetts Electric had about 5,500 customers without power at the height of the outages. By early evening 95 percent of their customers had their lights back on and the remaining 319 should be restored by 10 p.m., according to spokeswoman Nancy Creed.

Wind damaged a section of the roof at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, causing rain to leak inside, said Fire Capt. Allan Murrant. He said hospital officials moved patients from one wing to another. There were no reports of injuries.