Power Outage Leaves Half Of Main Street Dark

     A transformer malfunction is being blamed for a power outage that left thousands of Falmouth homes and businesses without electricity last night.
     The malfunction occurred shortly after 5 PM and within 10 minutes was restored to many customers, David Branda, spokesman for NStar said last night.
     An hour later, there were still 12,000 customers in Falmouth and Martha’s Vineyard without power, but by 6:30 PM electricity was back on for island residents. It remained out in downtown Falmouth until about 10:30 PM.
     The incident meant that, for many, both social and dinner plans had to be altered or rescheduled. Fans of the Falmouth Commodores were informed that the game against the Orleans Cardinals had been postponed to Monday, August 4, because of the outage.
     Along Teaticket Highway toward the center of town, storefronts, including McDonald’s, Burger King, Stop & Shop, Dairy Queen, 99 Restaurant, Friendly’s, D’Angelo’s and Steve’s Pizzeria, were all dark and had closed by 7:30 PM.
     On Main Street, the outage created a series of contrasts, with the north side of the street without power, but the south side, which is on the hospital grid, with power.
     It meant that Ghelfi’s Candies of Cape Cod closed around 8 PM, three hours before they normally do. Because of the incident, employee Megan Thunberg said they took some sales, had to make change at the register and used the manual scale for candy purchases.
     Usually, she said, the biggest rush for them is between 9 and 10 PM, but “we lost a decent amount of customers in that hour,” because they had already closed. Meanwhile, across the street Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium was serving customers, largely unaffected by the outage.
     It was a similar story with two Italian restaurants on Main Street, Villagio Italian Ristorante & Martini Bar and La Cucina Sul Mare.
     Shortly after the dinner crowd arrived at Villagio, owner Jay Bartolomei said they lost power and with that “we lost a lot of money,” which translates to at least, he estimated, $8,000.
     “It gets to the point where it’s not worth it anymore,” he said. “The problem you have is there is only 10 weeks to make money. The off-season is slow, so a $8,000 hit kills you, especially where you are trying to pay off bills from last winter.”
     For dinners that had already been started, he said, he treated indoor customers to a candlelight dinner. Afterward, he said, they offered some salads and drinks to other customers, but were closed before power was restored at 10:30 PM.
     Because he leases the building, Mr. Bartolomei said, the solution to problems caused by the outage—purchasing a generator—does not make sense. “If I owned the building, I would, but I only rent there,” he said. “To spend $20,000 on a generator is not feasible for a five-year lease.”
     What was disheartening, he said, is that restaurants across the street were not impacted by the incident. Some called him for food, such as risotto, which he gave to the Firefly Wood Fire Grill & Bar, because they were so busy. He also lent out his staff to those who needed extra help for the night.
     “That is how we work,” he said. “When they run out of stuff, with some restaurants you have a good relationship with, you help them out because down the road it will happen to you.”
     The outage, the fifth time in three years this has happened, he said, has left him frustrated with NStar. “I don’t understand how they can put power across the street,” he said. “It has happened too many times...It is always my side of the street.”
     At La Cucina Sul Mare, the incident meant increased business for the Italian restaurant, which had power restored in roughly 15 minutes.
     For some customers, owner Mark Cilfone said the wait for his restaurant was nearly an hour and half, forcing him to extend their hours of operation past 10 PM when they normally close. “For a Thursday evening it was a bigger crowd than normal,” he said. 
     Despite that, Mr. Cilfone said, the outage was still unfortunate. “I feel bad for those across the street,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish this to happen again because we have very few days in the summer.”
     Dianne R. Harvey, manager of Laureen’s, was one of those who felt the negative impacts of the outage. She, too, was upset that her side of Main Street continues to be plagued with these types of events, which seem to happen at the most inopportune times of the year, listing New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July as previous examples.
     “It always seems to happen on this side of the street,” she said, complaining that “We are paying 2008 rates and getting 1940’s service...They don’t have any qualms about giving you a bill, but they don’t give you the service.”
     She said the profits that could have been received from last night’s crowd could pay for a bill in the wintertime. To recoup that, she said, is nearly impossible.
     While the outage caused problems to some businesses, it did not have any major impacts to the safety of residents despite traffic lights being out at the Falmouth Hospital intersection, Gifford Street and Jones Road, and the Stop & Shop intersection.
     Both Falmouth Fire Rescue and Falmouth police said they did not receive any more calls than normal because of the outage.