A Williamstown Department of Public Works crew works to remove a downed tree on Bee Hill Road.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Route 43 west of the Five Corners intersection in South Williamstown remained closed Tuesday morning while a tree service employed by National Grid worked to remove a tree felled Monday evening by Hurricane Sandy.
Department of Public Works crews also were dealing with a number of smaller closures the day after the edge of the storm blew through Northern Berkshire County.
Police Chief Kyle Johnson said he had received no reports of injuries and only minimal property damage related to the storm.
On Tuesday, as he helped keep Route 43 closed for workers from Lewis Tree Service, the only property damage Johnson could think of was slight damage to the windshield of a driver who reported the downed tree on the state highway at about 6:30 Monday evening.
In addition to blocking the road about a quarter mile west of the intersection, the tree took out a guy wire that supported a utility pole across the road.
Johnson said a Verizon crew raised a replacement pole at about 1 a.m. Tuesday. But removal of the tree took time because of its position across the high-tension wire and the potential for the wire to snap back if the tree was removed too quickly.
Nearby on Bee Hill Road, a town DPW crew was hard at work removing a tree that blocked the road. The tree came down on a nearby wire, but emergency workers were able to remove it from the line and set it on the road, where the crew was breaking up the tree with a chainsaw on Tuesday morning.
A crew from Lewis Tree Service in the employ of National Grid works to remove a tree fallen across Route 43.
No damage appeared to be done to the wire that broke the tree's fall.
In the town center, the only road reported to be blocked was School Street near Cole Avenue, where a large pine tree snapped off and fell across the road. Otherwise, there were trees and limbs reported down on personal property throughout town.
On Tuesday morning at 10, Town Manager Peter Fohlin said the town had three areas where residents were without power. The affected neighborhoods were on School Street, Hancock Road and Berlin Mountain Road.
Fohlin said National Grid reported that 17 customers were affected by the outages, but he had no independent confirmation of that number.
Like Johnson, Fohlin had no reports of injuries related to the storm.
No one requested access to the town's emergency shelter.
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