A storm made its way through town on the morning of Monday, Dec. 18, leaving streets flooded, trees and electrical lines down and dozens of residents without power.

According to Onset Fire Assistant Chief Howard Andersen, one tree fell on a house on Cahoon Road, breaking the gas line. 

Onset Fire has not received any calls related to injuries. According to Andersen, the majority of their 10 storm-related calls were for wires down, including some arcing, which is when the electrical current jumps gaps in a circuit or between two electrodes.

Andersen said the department prepared for the storm through monitoring and increasing staffing for the expected influx of calls. 

According to the Department of Natural Resources Facebook page the highest gust recorded at the Onset Pier was 67 miles per hour.

Meteorologist Joe Dellicarpini from the National Weather Service said gusts for the south coast were in the 60 to 70 miles per hour range.

Dellicarpini said temperatures averaged in the low 60s and Wareham received a total of 1.91 inches of precipitation. 

He said the storm was "not unusual" and there have been some similar storms recorded in the past for December and even January. He highlighted last Christmas Eve when there was a similar windy, rainy storm. He said they might have expected snow this time of year.

It's "not unprecedented," but it's also not one that happens frequently this time of year, he added.

At the Tuesday, Dec. 19 Select Board meeting Town Administrator Derek Sullivan said, “I've been in the community for over 12 years, and that was the worst storm that I'd seen for flooding.”

Sullivan added though the flooding was “intense,” this was not a hurricane and it could have been much worse.

He emphasized the importance of staying inside and being safe during storms.

Select Board member Jared Chadwick said, “These big storms are not the time for you to go out and drive around town and look at all the fun stuff.”

“All of our emergency services are stretched thin all across Massachusetts with storms like this,” Chadwick said. “For us to respond to you doing some stupid just makes life a heck of a lot harder for everyone.”

Eversource President of Regional Electric Operations Craig Hallstrom said, “We know the timing of this storm is terrible as people are trying to enjoy time off or prepare for the Christmas holiday.”

Hallstrom added, “We have hundreds of crews on the ground working but with outages being so widespread it will take some time, especially as we continue to take on damage and outages throughout the day, even after the storm passes because of the weakened state of trees and the saturated ground.”

Eversource had hundreds of crews across Massachusetts working on restoring power, according to a press release from the company. However, “lineworkers cannot go up in bucket trucks in strong winds, so in many circumstances crews have to wait for winds to subside before they can make necessary repairs.”

Eversource provides a storm safety checklist and steps on how to build a storm safety kit – even one for pets.

Eversource customers are also able to download the company’s app, which provides a communication channel and a power map where outages can be reported. Users can also watch the progress of the company addressing those issues.

The Wareham Fire Department did not respond to requests for comment.