Rhode Island officials monitor water levels after Monday’s storm

CRANSTON, R.I. (WLNE) — Flooding across New England on Monday left tens of thousands of people without power at the storms’ peak.

The Army Corps of Engineers also closed the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Providence, and officials said they’re keeping a close eye on local waterways as rain continues.

Officials from across Rhode Island held a briefing Monday afternoon to provide updates on the storm response.

“I’d say this is exactly what we prepared for, and our response shows that accordingly. We’ve had already 20,000 restorations. We have, as of now, a certain number of outages that we will continue to address throughout the day and likely lead into tomorrow as well,” said Brian Schuster with Rhode Island Energy.

Schuster said they need winds below 35 miles-per-hour for more serious repairs, meaning some community members may be left without power until Tuesday.

“Outages that have the greatest magnitude are going to be, obviously, the first that we look at and try to restore. Those will largely be back today, but there will be scattered outages that, based on the duration of the remainder of this event, will trickle into tomorrow,” Schuster said.

That’s not the only impact of the storm expected to continue through the week, as emergency staff keep a close eye on water levels.

“We’re monitoring all of the rivers with the National Weather Service. We expect them to be higher tomorrow, as all this rain runs off, gets into the river, and makes them higher, so we’re going to monitor through the night,” says Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency Director, Marc Pappas.

“Right now, we’re looking at maybe moderate, lighter to moderate is pretty much where we are, but we’ll keep an eye on it,” Pappas continued.

Pappas says they’ve been working with RIDOT all weekend, watching the Washington Bridges closure for how it may impact emergency crews.

Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti also said the recently opened bypass lanes and emergency lanes are working as expected, and the timeline for restoring the westbound side of the bridge should stay around the original three month goal.

“I think I said it repeatedly through the last several days that the schedule is based on normal winter weather. If we get abnormal, it’s going to push that date further out. If we get better weather, hopefully, it will help us do it faster,” Alviti said.

The spokesman for RI Energy says the company has more than 200 forestry and line crews out across the state and told ABC 6 News that the bridge closures didn’t impact their response, as they made sure to stage crews ahead of the storm.

Each of the officials further reminded residents that safety comes first and to avoid downed power lines as well as staying away from flooded streets.