Haynes Street had to be closed and traffic throughout the entire area had to be rerouted, causing backups on neighboring streets. Both Concord Street and Brown/Haynes/Acton streets (Route 27) are major routes for commuters headed to Route 2 to the east, or out through Stow to Route 495 to the west.  The Map below shows an estimate of the extent of the detours.

On the map above, the dark brown line shows where my computer's map app indicates a road that's closed.  I added the black arrow and legend "Damaged Pole" to indicate the location of the accident.  The red lines to indicate other road closures that I observed as I traveled to the scene at 8 AM.  The blue lines show routes traffic had to take to avoid the blocked roads.  The red and blue lines are from my observations and are only an approximation; some roads may have been open or closed throughout the day, so check your traffic app, and always follow the directions of police on scene.

UPDATE:  2:00 PM - Concord street was closed throughout the morning, but is now open in both directions and travel along Brown Street is also open, but only down to Concord Street. Haynes Street remains closed at the scene, while crews continue to work.

UPDATE:  11:00 AM - I just talked with a press representative at Eversource on the phone.  She informed me:
• The car hit the pole at 3:07 AM.
• Power was knocked out for 200 customers.  Subsequently, power was restored to all but 112 customers.
• They had to de-energize the area again, but finally power was restored to everyone just after 9 AM.
​• Before traffic can be allowed to pass through this area, a new pole has to be installed, likely by 2 PM.
After 2 PM, each of the high voltage lines need to be transferred over.  This is extremely dangerous work, and many safety precautions must be taken to protect the workers on the job.  It will likely take all day and into the night for this work to be completed.  Traffic may be opened for one lane in either direction, but it is not known when or for how long it will take for all lanes to be open again.

A portion of the underground conduit for the high voltage lines that ran up the side of the pole, known as a standpipe, must be replaced.  New wires will have to be pulled underground through the conduit as well.  Eversource has separate crews and equipment for both underground and overhead line work.  The the underground work must be completed and pole erected before work on the overhead lines can commence.

At this time, it is not clear whether Haynes street will remain blocked in both directions, or one lane will be opened.

UPDATE:  10:45 PM - Work has continued all afternoon and into the night.  At this time, the crew estimates that the work will be done during the night and completed well before morning rush hour on Thursday when traffic starts to build up.  A member of the crew told me that they were making every effort to maintain power to homes in the area throughout the work.  If they need to cut power, I was told, it would likely be for only a brief moment or two.

After that was done, a section at the top of the old pole was sawed off and removed to make it easier to lift the next group of three wires up and over it, over to insulators on the new pole.  But first, the new crossbar had to be mounted on the new pole, as shown below.

By 10 PM, the other 3 phase lines had been moved to the crossbar on the new pole.  And the switch had been mounted below that.  At this time, new wire was being pulled through the underground conduit, from its connection point in an underground chamber nearby.

The world is full of surprises and this is a good example.  At least power was restored quickly and crews were on site to repair the damage in short order.  Fortunately, the pole did not fall all the way down to the ground!

In this story, I've gone into a lot of detail to describe the work that's being done to get everything back in working order.  I've done that because I don't think of what I'm doing as just news, but also as a learning opportunity. I hope that people of all ages, who might be interested, are inspired to understand more of the world around us and the infrastructure on which we all depend.  ​(That's one reason I keep this web site free from ads and subscription fees.)

Each time this happens, crews have to work overtime, often into the night, to make repairs, to  restore service, and to re-open streets that had to be cordoned off to protect the public and make room for them to do the work.

Now clearly, repairs like this are not the only factor in the distribution portion of your electric bill.  My only point here is that it's human nature to lose track of what has to be done, to make switching on a light or an appliance something we can do without a thought. 

UPDATE - Tuesday, September 8, 2026 - Earlier today the Maynard Department of Public Works posted an announcement, saying, in part, "The Town has reached sufficient storage capacity levels and will now be instituting a level 2 - Water Restriction. This restriction will allow for some outdoor use and all indoor uses. Please continue to monitor the website for updates as conditions may change." They provided a graphic detailing restrictions under Level 2.  I've included a copy, in an appendix, below.

Some time in the very early hours of Thursday, September 3rd, while most folks in town were asleep, a water main ruptured beneath the private road leading into the Summerhill Glen housing complex, just off Thomas Street.  Thomas street connects to Lower Beacon Street at the other end, just a few feet from the junction with Florida Road, near the Florida Road Bridge. The map, below, shows the exact location. It's easy to see how close to the river this is.

Water main breaks are almost always reported by residents who notice water bubbling up out of the ground, or running down the pavement somewhere, and then call the police.  The police answer the phone any time of day or night and can quickly contact the public works employee on duty to shut off the water in the affected area, and start the process to make repairs.
But at the time of night when this occurred, at the end of a small street with very little traffic, no one was around to notice.  Water began pouring up and over the pavement, down the embankment nearby, and into the Assabet River.
Around 5 AM, when the level of water in the town's main water tanks, at the top of Summer Hill, dropped low enough, a sensor to set off an alarm.  That alarm notified a water department foreman that there was a serious loss of water going on.

He got into his truck and began driving through town, stopping at each of the bridges over the Assabet River, looking for cloudy or muddy water below.  Water of this amount always carries soil and sand down with it, polluting the river.  Spotting  this cloudy water helps locate the source of the break.  He discovered just such discolored water at the Florida Road Bridge and worked his way up to the source, which turned out to be at the border where Thomas Street meets the access road to Summerhill Glen.

Update:  Because of his quick action, and the work of others in the department, the town was able to maintain water pressure for the rest of the town, in spite of the water loss.

A few hours later, as I was having breakfast, a friend of mine texted me that she had seen a notice posted on social media by the town.  I rushed down to have a look. 
​What I saw when I got there was a closed street, cracked and damaged pavement, soil and debris all over the roadway, and a water division truck nearby.  I talked with the foreman about the situation, he explained what happened, and shared the video with me.

In the above images, you can see the small excavator that was used to dig through the pavement at the surface.  But since there are so many pipes and lines beneath, it was too dangerous to just keep digging that way.  ​

At home, water can be turned on after plumbing work usually without damaging anything.  You just get gurgling, burping, and spitting when you open your faucets again.  But in water mains, under very high pressure, air pockets can cause surges and vibrations that can strain valves, and stress joints, couplings and older weaker pipes.  When I left, they were still at work to make sure everything went smoothly.

I returned to the site on Friday and found that the work on the water system had been completed.  All the backfilling was done, but the road was still closed because it hadn't been paved yet.  That's because the replacement soil will still need to be leveled out and compacted, then the sewer chamber and access cover, and grating for the storm drain will need to be built up to the correct height.  Later on, both a binder course and a finish course of asphalt must be spread and rolled out and allowed to cool, in two separate operations.

I created the headline for this story on September 1st, intending to cover three aspects of water in Maynard, before the water main break occurred. Now my plan is to cover the other two topics in a subsequent posting.

I have gone into a lot of technical detail in this story.  I have done this because I've become aware of the complexities of our water system and I wanted to share some of that information with you.  I figure that the more you know, the more you will understand why it costs so much to maintain a water system, how difficult it is, and perhaps have a better idea about how to help improve the situation.

Indeed, losing 1/3 of Maynard’s reserve water supply is a serious event, and many people are understandably upset.  After all, we have water restrictions every summer, rates on our water bills are increasing every year, and there are areas in town where the water is frequently discolored.  Why are there all these problems?  Why can’t town officials fix these things?
The answer lies in the complex challenges modern water systems face, and the limited money we have to deal with them.

Meanwhile, with inflation, it costs more every year to deliver the same amount of water to residents and busineses.

So, it's tempting to blame town officials and employees for our problems, but in my opinion they are good people who work very hard to stay ahead of the challenges we face in delivering water to the town, under very trying circumstances.
Now that we've had such a high volume loss of water from this break, I expect that new measures to catch this kind of thing in the future will be looked at and implemented if at all possible.  Meanwhile, clean drinking water is amazingly low in cost, when compared to other things (see section below).

What may be a little confusing is where it says 0-500 cubic feet has a rate of $3.08.  If you used 500 cubic feet of water, it would appear to cost $1540.00.  Well, that's obviously wrong.  That's because the $3.08 is for 100 cubic feet, not one cubic foot.  Water industry people often abbreviate that as "ccf," where the first "c" stands for 100, as in Roman Numerals.  Don't blame me, I didn't invent this.
So it's only 5 ccf x $3.08 that comes out to $15.40.
The other confusing thing is that this is expressed in cubic feet.  To know how many gallons that is,  each cubic foot is 7.48 gallons.  So 500 cubic feet x 7.48 equals 3,740 gallons.  I know, this seems like one of those dreaded "word problems" you may have had in arithmetic in school, but bear with me.  This means, you're paying $15.40 for 3,740 gallons of water.  Better try that with pennies.  1,540 cents for 3,740 gallons of water gives a rate of 0.41 cents per gallon.  In other words, water costs less than half a cent per gallon, at that rate.
That's for the first 500 cubic feet.  This rate is for single people living on fixed incomes who use very little water.  It gives them a break on the rates.
If you use more, you still pay the same amount for the first 500 cubic feet you use.  On my bill, we used 710 cubic feet last quarter.  That means 210 cubic feet fell into the next rate category, of $8.88 per ccf.  That's $18.65 for that amount of water.  That is equivalent to 1,571 gallons of water.  So, I'm paying just over one penny at 1.19 cents per gallon.  Still a super bargain.
When I first moved to Maynard, back in 2019, I found the bill confusing, so I took some time to figure it out, then made a video about what I learned.  It's using a bill with rates from 2020, but you get the idea.  It spells out what I've said here in more detail, in an easy to follow set of steps.  Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/BXkLAP1TmI4?si=12geblPcY8hpgrw4
​(Note: In the video, I say "I live alone" which was true at the time, but since then I've moved and am now married.) 

The rates for wastewater ("sewer") are higher, but the reasons for that would probably take another whole set of articles to explain, so I'll leave that for later.

Correction - September 8, 2026 - Originally, I stated that "The town does not own such a [Vacuum Excavation] truck because of the cost (between $300,000 and $600,000), and because of the few times per year it would be needed."  In truth, the town does own such a truck, as it is more frequently used than I had realized.  The truck can not only help with delicate excavation work, but also maintenance of the sewers.

Appendix 1 - September 8, 2026 -  Here below is the Level 2 water restriction table provided by the Town of Maynard.  I obtained this table from the town's web page:  https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/572
Please note that links to the town's web site may become invalid over time, as information there is frequently updated. That's why I have included it here, will it will stay put.

As you can see by the maps above, this ground water is present very close to where the water main break was on Thomas Road.  Along with the natural ground water level near the river, this makes it very likely to cause corrosion in any underground pipes in the area.

Appendix 3 - Here is an excerpt from a paper I found on the MWRA web site:  https://www.mwra.com/node/1453
"In the early colonial days, water supply technology wasn’t very complex. If you wanted water
run to your house, you bored out your own wooden logs. If you wanted water for your town,
large scale systems of bored-out logs were needed. Incidentally, pipe laying work was as
unpopular back then as it is now because it ruined the roads. Such simple questions as proper
depth, means of connecting services and fire taps arose almost immediately. Soon after the
initial pipes were laid, the real fun began, as the leaks, outages, water quality complaints and
other facts of life for the water supplier became apparent. As with any other emerging
technology, the methods and materials weren’t always up to the challenge."