Emergency crews responded to Boston's Deer Island on Monday after someone called to say there appeared to be something hanging from a blade on one of the two wind turbines in the area, according to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA).
The MWRA said the person was walking around the public access area of the water treatment facility when they made the discovery and called 911 around 10 a.m.
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Witnesses told NBC10 Boston Monday night that they watched as the wind turbine suddenly started spinning out of control and then a piece of a blade came flying off the 100-foot tower.
“I was scared out of my mind,” said Melinda Ginches. “Because we were right in the line of where the debris was falling. It was coming towards us.”
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Moments earlier, Ginches and her husband, who were out for a morning walk, had started hearing odd noises.
“We heard like a whirring sound and I looked up,” said Ginches. “You could see the windmill starting to spin really super fast, and the blades of the windmill starting to like undulate.”
The turbine helps power the water treatment plant run by the MWRA.
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“I’m like Oh my God it’s flying through the air,” she said.
Officials say the turbine had not even been operating for the last 13 months because of a ball bearing issue. It’s been locked in place since April 2022 due to the mechanical issue, but all of a sudden around 10 Monday morning, it started spinning on its own.
“What we assume the is that the wind broke the brake and made it come loose so it’s sort of spinning in free form.” said Ria Convery of the MWRA.
MWRA officials say there are no operational issues or damage to the treatment facility as a result of the broken turbine, and no one was injured in the incident.
The public access area was shut down so contractors could try to fix the issue. It took a contracting company several hours to stop the turbine, which was only installed 14 years ago.
“It’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t be happening,” said Larry Chretien of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance in Boston. “Wind turbines tend to last two or three decades.”
Chretien says more wind turbines are coming to Massachusetts, and he’s confident officials will figure out what went wrong in this case.
“My organization really tries to hold state government accountable and if I had any feeling that the Mass Water Resources Authority was incompetent or indifferent I would say so,” said Chretien.
Officials are investigating how exactly this happened in the first place. So far they have not located the section of blade that fell off.
Spaces around the wind turbines on the island feature public walking trails. The agency said Monday afternoon that the public access near the wind turbines will remain closed out of an abundance of caution.
"We don't want to risk anybody walking by and I believe that the Coast Guard has told small boats to stay away from the island, just in case because we have no idea where pieces would go if they were to come off," Convery said.
The second turbine was shut down for safety.
