WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Nearly 900 customers were without power on Friday morning after heavy winds blew through the area on Thursday night.

 

National Grid on Friday at 8:20 a.m. reported that 852 customers were affected by an outage that began at 11:27 p.m. on Thursday. About half that were still without power by 9:30 a.m.

 

The outage included the campus of Mount Greylock Regional School, which opened for classes on time with backup generator help.

 

Williamstown Police Chief Kyle Johnson said Friday morning that the biggest report of storm damage he was aware of in town was a large pine tree that came down on Cold Spring Road (Route 7). He indicated that likely was the cause of the outage, a supposition backed up by the outage map on the National Grid website.

 

"I'm not an electrician, but putting two and two together," Johnson said.

 

He said the tree was cleared and the road was open for traffic by 6:30 a.m., in time to allow school buses to proceed as usual.

 

When the middle/high school students arrived at Mount Greylock, they found business as usual.

 

"The generator has the building functioning," Superintendent Kimberley Grady said Friday morning. "The kitchen is up and running, and the bathrooms are available."

 

Grady said anyone wishing to call the school during the outage should call 413-652-5767.