After slamming into Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, Noel (by then an Extratropical Storm) hit portions of Eastern New England November 3. Winds up to hurricane force caused significant tree and power line damage along with minor structural damage. The hardest hit areas were Southeast and East Coastal Massachusetts as well as Southeastern Rhode Island. Noel, which had been a Category 1 hurricane after it passed through the Bahamas, transitioned into a major "Nor'easter" system, passing less than 100 miles southeast of Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts.
ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator and SKYWARN Coordinator for the National Weather Service (NWS) in Taunton, Rob Macedo, KD1CY, stated that ARES, RACES and SKYWARN groups in Eastern Massachusetts were activated Saturday morning. "Activation of SKYWARN started at 7 AM with operations at our NWS Taunton Ham Station, WX1BOX, with weather conditions deteriorating after 10 that morning." Carl Aveni, N1FY, and Phil McLaughlin, KB1CYO, assisted with operations at the NWS Taunton office.
With sustained strong winds at 25-35 MPH and gusts up to 60 MPH across Eastern and Southern Coastal Massachusetts and Southeastern Rhode Island that caused damage to trees and power lines, there were pockets of power outages across portions of the region; rainfall totals of 1-2 inches were common. Conditions on Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard were far worse. Winds gusted well into hurricane force resulting in widespread power outages and structural damage, including damage to trees and power lines.
"We received a report from the Nantucket Harbormaster of a 90 MPH measured gust in the Madaket section on the western part of the island," said Nantucket RACES Radio Officer and ARES Emergency Coordinator George Allen, N1NBQ. Allen and several other amateurs manned the Nantucket EOC for the entire event. "Nantucket Island sustained a high-end moderate coastal flood event with lower-end moderate coastal flooding over Cape Cod and the Islands and Southeast Plymouth County Massachusetts" Macedo said.
Cape Cod ARES District Emergency Coordinator and Cape Cod Red Cross Communications Officer Frank O'Laughlin, WQ1O, said, "I had a wind gust of 89 MPH at my home in the Marstons Mills section of Barnstable before having my anemometer ripped off the tower and blown several houses down and destroyed." Roof damage to a few structures was reported in Falmouth and Fairhaven, Massachusetts as well as Nantucket Island. The police communications tower in Harwich blew down due to the hurricane force gusts.
With the Cape Cod Red Cross using call sign K1PBO and Dan Howard, K1DYO, serving as Net Control, the 146.955 repeater in Dennis was active from 9:30 AM Saturday through 12:30 AM EDT Sunday doing hourly roll calls of various EOCs. In between roll calls, he received other reports of damage and flooding. "Several shelters were opened, but not many people utilized them. Amateur Radio operators covered the Red Cross headquarters and also a couple of the most vulnerable shelters that may have a loss of communication capability," Macedo said.
Roughly 10 VHF/UHF repeaters were utilized during the activation across Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. The New England VoIP Integrated Conference system, EchoLink Node: 9123/*NEW-ENG* conference server with IRLP reflector 9123, was utilized as a command Net linking various repeaters together using the Internet. The Massachusetts State EOC, as well as Region 1 and Region 2 Offices of Massachusetts Emergency Management serving Eastern Massachusetts, were also on the system.
ARRL Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager Dennis Dura, K2DCD, logged on to the New England VoIP Integrated Conference system and received an update on conditions from the Nor'easter from the NWS Taunton Forecast Office. "Please thank everyone for their efforts on this dangerous system," Dura said.
The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine, WX1GYX, was also active with SKYWARN Operations for Southern Maine and Southeastern New Hampshire; the New England VoIP Integrated Conference system allowed the NWS Forecast Offices in Gray and Taunton to keep in touch. "We recently installed HF at the National Weather Service in Gray and can now have point-to-point communications with the Taunton office through this means," said Tom Berman, N1KTA, weather forecaster and SKYWARN Program Leader for NWS Gray, Maine.
Rhode Island SKYWARN Coordinator Martin Mendelson, N1JMA, reported tree and wire damage in Washington County with pockets of power outages; a 30 foot sailboat broke its mooring and was washed ashore at the University of Rhode Island bay campus in Narragansett. There were more trees and wires down and more significant damage in Newport County where Portsmouth Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Lowrimore, KD4ONW said Bruce Gavin, KD1MW, reported a 64 MPH wind gust in Little Compton.
In Connecticut, Acting Section Emergency Coordinator, Wayne Grolund, N1CLV, activated ARES Region 4 (covering New London, Windham and parts of Tolland County) to Level 2 Standby status. A Resource Net was available to have people ready in case deployment was required. There were reports of tree and power line damage, but the damage was not enough to cause an ARES mobilization.
Extratropical Noel moved up into the Canadian Maritimes and caused similar conditions over Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. -- Some information provided by ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator Rob Macedo, KD1CY; Connecticut SKYWARN Coordinator Steve Williams, K1SJW, and Rhode Island SKYWARN Coordinator Martin Mendelson, N1JMA
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