Wind turbine blade breaks off, lands in cranberry bog
By Riley Rourke, Mike Sullivan
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PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A blade broke off of a wind turbine and landed in a cranberry bog in Plymouth, Massachusetts on Friday.
It happened in the area of Head of the Bay Road near the Bourne town line just before 2 p.m. The Plymouth Fire Department said that a neighbor had notified them about the incident after noticing that one of the blades was missing.
Video from WBZ-TV’s helicopter showed the blade lying on the ground in a cranberry bog, surrounded by debris. The blade is around 75 to 100 feet long, according to officials. The part of the turbine that holds the blade in place appears to be charred at the top of the tower.
“Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the turbine automatically shut itself down as designed,” Fire Chief Neil Foley said in a press release.
Kerri Costello lives in a house just a few hundred feet away. “All of a sudden I heard like a huge boom, like an explosion type of boom,” she said Friday night. “I don’t think I’ll sleep though, no I’m not going to sleep.”
She is thankful no one, including herself or kids were injured. “Couldn’t help but thinking if that was turned a little bit more, it just went over there, I was literally sitting in my room in the window right there, my kids’ rooms are in the one right next to it, what if god forbid it ever went through,” she said.
“Our biggest fear” David Daylor lives nearby and says he felt his house shake when the blade fell. “I heard this rumble, and I actually kind of felt it in my house. It felt like a mini earthquake,” Daylor said.
He said neighbors texted him and told him it was one of the turbine blades. “I almost didn’t believe it, I’m like no impossible, that’s our biggest fear is safety with these turbines,” Daylor said. “And sure enough I looked across and it was missing off the turbine.”
Daylor said the community was worried that something like this would happen when the turbines were installed roughly a decade ago.
“We brought up the safety concerns of just this, a turbine failure, what happens, we’ve all seen the videos online. I was honestly hoping I’d never see this here, but yet look behind us,” Daylor said.
Residents said they were told that the turbines wouldn’t need maintenance for 25 years after installation.
“All these turbines were built at the same time commissioned at the same time, they obviously all might have the same failure now, are we talking weeks, days, hours?” Daylor said. “We don’t know.”
There are several other wind turbines in the area, but they appeared to be functioning normally.
Fire officials cleared the scene Friday night saying there is no danger to the public. The company that operates the turbines is investigating what caused the blade to come off and are working to bring in contractors to clean up the debris.
This is the latest trouble with a wind turbine in the Bay State. Last year, a blade broke off a turbine in Nantucket Sound with sharp fiber glass debris washing up on local beaches.
WBZ-TV’s Aaron Parseghian contributed to this report.
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