By JIM HICKEY
A fast-moving, violent thunderstorm lashed the Island early Saturday morning, causing temporary flooding and traffic backups and setting off house and car alarms with deep thunder booms and bright lightning strikes, including one that hit the county communications center where the storm-related calls were pouring in.
A bolt of lightning is believed to have started a fire that destroyed a shed behind a home on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road.
Potholes in roads will go without repairs, town beaches will have no lifeguards, more dogs may be running loose and fewer police officers will be directing traffic this summer in Oak Bluffs, as the town begins to feel the effects of bone-deep budget cuts from this spring.
In April town voters rejected 11 different Proposition 2 1/2 override articles totaling $650,000. As a result, town employees are being asked to do more with less just as the busy summer season arrives.
At a special town meeting Tuesday, West Tisbury voters will consider whether to spend money to hire a part-time administrative assistant in the town hall, and whether to grant the selectmen authority to sell three affordable lots in the Bailey Park subdivision off Old County Road.
The special town meeting — the first in West Tisbury in three years — begins Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the West Tisbury School. Moderator F. Patrick Gregory will preside over the session.
It was hard to say what was more threatening Tuesday, the gray and imposing skies hanging over the athletic field at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, or the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams, who both rolled over their opponents in back-to-back games during the first round of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic tournament.
It was an especially busy winter at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, as workers rushed to complete the two preparatory phases of a $7 million runway renovation project. The project involves removing approximately 300 feet of runway along the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road, and adding new runway on the other side of the airport, closer to Barnes Road.
While many people this week were thinking beach, as summer weather settled over the Island, at the Martha’s Vineyard Arena they were thinking ice.
Good ice is essential to good skating, and a good Zamboni machine is essential to good ice.
And after months of planning, wishing and fund-raising, the arena has a new Zamboni.
The machine that resurfaces the ice, made by the Zamboni family company, arrived at the arena on Tuesday morning after a journey from Paramount, Calif.
