Days after a powerful nor’easter blew through town, efforts to clean up debris and restore power to businesses and residences continued on Saturday, Oct. 30. 

The town opened its brush pile — which is only ordinarily open on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month — from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. A Municipal Maintenance employee said the brush pile, located at 95 Charge Pond Rd., saw more than 100 people by his estimate. He also noted that some Wareham residents made multiple trips. 

At 8 a.m., he said the line of cars waiting to drop off tree limbs, fallen trees and other lawn debris stretched through the Municipal Maintenance lot and down Charge Pond Road to the overpass. 

Tim Feeny was at the brush pile emptying a truck bed full of tree broken branches and brush. Just after 1 p.m., Feeny was already on his fourth and final trip to the brush pile. He said there was a lot of damage to the trees in his neighborhood of Dinahs Way. 

“I just can’t believe it’s not even winter yet, and we’re doing this,” he said, gesturing to his pile of branches and the piles on other trucks and trailers nearby. 

Feeny’s home was without power from about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday until about 6 p.m. Friday. Even with a generator, he said it was “very difficult.”

Fara and Kevin Padden were on their second trip to the brush pile by a little after 1 p.m. They said Agawam Beach, where they live, experienced a good amount of tree damage, mostly broken tree limbs.

“It’s just a mess,” Fara Padden said. 

Their power had gone out during the storm, but was restored Thursday afternoon, she said. 

Shangri La resident Paul LeBeau said his yard was full of broken branches and tree limbs after the storm. The nor’easter knocked out the power at his home for two days, and a falling branch took off one of the mirrors on his truck. Despite being down a mirror, LeBeau drove a truckload of broken tree branches and other debris to the brush pile on Saturday. 

“It could have been worse,” he said with a laugh. “I could have been walking to get rid of this stuff.” 

Utility crews were also hard at work all around town. Eversource said it had thousands of staff working to restore the power — including “line and tree crews, damage assessors, troubleshooters, substation electricians, and wire guards, as well as logistics and other support staff.” 

As of 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, the Eversource outage map indicated that just over 100 of its nearly 15,000 customers were still without power. It is unclear whether those customers have been without power since the nor’easter hit or if they were impacted by strong winds after the Tuesday/Wednesday storm.

Over the course of the day Saturday, Eversource restored power to more than 3,000 customers. 

On Thursday, Oct. 28, Town Administrator Derek Sullivan said that town buildings escaped the storm mostly unscathed, but a number of shingles were blown off the Multiservice Center roof. 

The historic Tremont Nail Factory property also appeared to have sustained some damage, particularly to the signage.

The Wareham Land Trust saw significant storm damage to some of its preserves. At least 20 trees fell across trails at Fearing Hill, while about 10 fell across trails at the Douglas S. Westgate. Less than 10 fell at Tweedy and Barnes.

Because the Fearing Hill and Westgate preserves are town property, Land Trust President Kathy Pappalardo said that cleaning up the trails is the town’s responsibility. Although volunteers will likely help out, it could be some time before the trails are fully cleared.

This story has been updated to include information about the storm’s impact on Wareham Land Trust properties. Editor Chloe Shelford contributed to this report.