Barnstable County, MA – Following a blizzard that left over 153,000 Cape Cod residents without power, the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce is calling for a fundamental overhaul of the region’s electrical grid, advocating for the burial of power lines to mitigate the impact of future storms. The call comes as residents grapple with days-long outages and questions linger about the state’s investment in the region’s infrastructure.
“If you appear at the outage map, nearly every dark neighborhood traces back to downed limbs and overhead lines,” stated Paul Neidzwiecki, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, in a blog post published Thursday. “In a forested, wind-exposed, coastal region with sandy soil, that isn’t surprising. It’s predictable.” Neidzwiecki is urging the formation of a regional grid resilience task force and a phased undergrounding strategy, prioritizing “critical corridors, village centers, public safety routes and economic hubs.”
The Blizzard of ’26, which peaked on Monday, caused widespread disruption across Cape Cod, prompting the opening of six regional shelters and at least 14 local warming centers, according to the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Committee. Eversource, the region’s primary energy provider, declared “substantially completed power restoration” on Friday evening, though a “small number of remaining outages” persisted in “difficult repairs” and “hard-to-access locations.” Crews addressed over 175 broken utility poles and repaired “dozens of miles of downed or damaged electric lines.”
The push for undergrounding is not recent. David Churbuck, a resident of Cotuit since 1991, pointed to a 1998 estimate that placed the cost of burying 2,900 miles of electric lines at $2.2 billion. More recently, in 2015, the town of Orleans received a quote of $3 million per mile from Eversource when considering burying utilities. “Given the insane inflation of utility bills due to tacked-on subsidies by the state,” Churbuck said, “I find it hard to believe ratepayers will be keen to observe another surcharge tacked onto their bills.” He suggested a policy of mandating undergrounding whenever roads are excavated for other infrastructure projects as a more feasible first step.
The economic impact of the outages is significant. Neidzwiecki emphasized that Cape Cod generates $2.9 billion in annual visitor spending, supporting over 14,000 jobs. “Make no mistake: in February, Cape Cod is not an affluent resort community,” he stated. “It’s seniors on fixed incomes. It is year-round workers. It is families relying on medical equipment and food deliveries. When the power goes out for days, vulnerability is not theoretical.”
Hyannis resident Gina Stewart expressed frustration over the lack of preparedness, recounting that she was without power for three days, while her elderly relatives remained in the dark for four. “It was expected that trees would blow and affect the power lines, and that affects people living on properties that aren’t able to make it out,” Stewart said Saturday. “As people age, like our parents, they get more set in their ways, and they don’t want to ask for help until it’s an emergency.”
State Sen. Julian Cyr, who represents the Cape and Islands, did not respond to a request for comment Saturday afternoon. Governor Maura Healey lifted the state of emergency on Friday, stating, “The people of Massachusetts always come together to help each other in our time of need.”
Barnstable’s Department of Public Works began preparing for the storm several days in advance, according to Kelly Collopy, the department’s communications lead. By Monday morning, crews were responding to an “overwhelming number of downed trees and downed power lines,” hindering snow removal efforts. Collopy noted that crews often encountered multiple unreported tree issues while clearing roads, describing it as an “insane effort” from Monday afternoon onward.
