Vermont braces as high winds may bring power outages with more than 1,000 still in the dark

CORRECTION: An earlier version noted Green Mountain Power outages from Jan. 12, however, the company said those instances were not storm-related.

Many Vermonters are still without power following a Tuesday night storm that created damaging winds, but a similar forecast for Friday could mean more outages to come.

The National Weather Service Burlington office was predicting strong, damaging winds across Vermont with gusts in the 40 mph range for much of the state. Parts of Vermont from Rutland and further south were expecting gusts of 58 mph. The weather service issued a High Wind Warning and a Wind Advisory for Vermont from 11 p.m. Friday night through 11 a.m. Saturday.

The storm, which is projected to also bring snow and a wintry mix, moves into the area late Friday night. The strongest winds are anticipated to occur in the early hours of Saturday morning and are particularly focused in areas along the western slope of the Green Mountains.

Where is power still out

Around noon on Friday, there were still about 1,300 households and businesses without power across Vermont, and nearly 1,000 of them are in Chittenden County.

Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg was made a shelter for those whose power had yet to return. The school was expected to stay open until 6 p.m. Friday, however, a phone call to school district families noted it would remain open longer if the Friday night storm caused more widespread power outages.

At noon on Friday, Vermont Electric Coop (VEC) showed that 359 of its Hinesburg customers were still without power, affecting 31% of the town.

Green Mountain Power and Burlington Electric customers seemed to have all had their power restored.

Chittenden County towns still experiencing outages, as of noon, included:

• Hinesburg - 359 (VEC)

• Westford - 119 (VEC)

• Richmond - 107 (VEC)

• Underhill - 95 (VEC)

• Essex - 44 (VEC)

• Jericho - 32 (VEC)

• Williston - 11 (VEC)

Vermont Electric Coop said it had restored power to more than 16,000 members since the Tuesday night event.

"This significant wind event has resulted in at least 39 broken poles on the system which are very time- and labor-intensive to repair," a statement said on VEC's website. "We have tripled our usual crews on the system and estimated restoration times will be updated as crews are assigned."

At that time, VEC was reporting 52 individual outage events across 19 towns.

Are there still shelters and warming centers open

Vermont Emergency Management was only showing one emergency shelter open at the time at CVU High School, located at 369 CVU Road in Hinesburg. If further outages occur, visit vem.vermont.gov/shelters to find out where shelters are located.

Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aprildbarton.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Friday night storm may bring Vermont more power outages: Wind warning