Updated at 10:23 a.m.
Nearly 25,000 customers remained without power Saturday morning after high winds tore through Vermont Friday evening.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby didn’t bring the flooding that many in the state had been bracing for, but it knocked out power for roughly 50,000 customers on Friday night, according to VT Outages. The National Weather Service in Burlington detected gusts in excess of 60 miles per hour in the northern Champlain Valley.
The high winds also led to one rescue, according Vermont Emergency Management spokesperson Mark Bosma. The state’s urban search and rescue team was dispatched to Alburgh to free a person from a building that collapsed as a result of a downed tree.
Vermont Emergency Management had not received any reports of flood-related damage, Bosma said Saturday morning.
In a press release Saturday morning, Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest electric utility, said its crews had restored power to 36,000 customers, with 9, 900 remaining. Repairs for more remote customers could continue into Sunday, the utility said.
“There is widespread damage statewide, with the most severe damage in the Champlain Valley along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, with massive trees torn down from where the winds hit the hardest,” the release stated. Mike Burke, vice president of operations, urged people to stay away from downed power lines and trees.
As of 9 a.m. Saturday, a total of roughly 24,700 outages remained across the state.
Debby, classified as a tropical depression by the time it reached Vermont, also brought heavy rain and prompted the weather service to issue flood, tornado and high wind warnings at various points on Friday.
The National Weather Service is forecasting “much quieter weather” for the weekend, with scattered showers possible on Sunday and Monday but only “light” accumulation of rainfall anticipated.
