Two rounds of coastal storms battered the forementioned community in 1898. The first one (of lesser intensity) took place on February 1 and owing to the ferocity of it, many lines were broken, affecting the town's 180 electric light customers and two series street lighting circuits with a total of 370 street lamps. Progress was rapidly made so that service to all could be restored in a prompt manner. The light plant's 1898 Annual Report stated "...and on the evening of February 10, every circuit in town, street and commercial, was in working order."

The forementioned report further stated.. "In the early part of November the lines were thoroughly insulated and placed in such condition that it was believed no ordinary storm would have any effect on the working order of the wires. But it has been said "Man proposes, and God disposes," as of Sunday November 27th, we were in the midst of a storm, the severity of which had not been equaled during the past 40 years, and on Monday, ---

"When the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own."

"In many places, telephone poles and their heavily loaded crossarms, made doubly so by the accumulation of snow. fell, carrying down our wires as a giant pigmy would."

"The terrific gale, the wind attaining a velocity of nearly sixty miles an hour, the heavy snow attaching itself to the wires until the lines in some places were over three inches in diameter, combined with falling trees and limbs, was more than any line could withstand, and where on Saturday had been a well insulated, efficient plant, was now in many localities, a mass of broken poles and tangled wires."

The above photo depicts one of many utility poles affected by the November 1898 storm. To those familiar with this historic town, this image was taken on Main Street looking south with Winter Street going up from the left. The Light Plant operated 113 miles of wire in 1898. Most of this community's telephone circuits combining to twisted cable within a wooden junction box are upon the pole in the background. The town's electric service and trolley lines in the foreground.