Widespread Power Outages Across Mass.

More than 250,000 customers across Massachusetts remained without power as of early Monday evening, following a powerful wind-whipped storm that drenched areas throughout New England overnight.

In some North Shore communities, including Boxford and Salisbury, nearly 100 percent of customers were without power as of 5 p.m.

The state's emergency management agency said it could be three days before everyone gets their power back.

"The wind, combined with the heavy rain, is always an issue with trees and tree damage," Eversource spokesman Mike Durand told WBUR. "That's what we expected and that's unfortunately what we got. We're dealing mostly with damage caused by trees and tree limbs right now."

National Grid spokesman Bob Kievra says with so many outages, the first steps are assessing damage and threats to the public.

"Today we're focusing on public safety, making sure that roads that are blocked are passable, removing down power lines," Kievra said.

Kievra says National Grid is prioritizing efforts to ensure people can get to emergency facilities like hospitals and shelters.

A wind advisory for most of the state expired at 5 p.m. Monday.

WBUR meteorologist David Epstein forecasts that gusty winds will continue throughout Monday, with strong bursts in some places that may exceed 40 mph.

Memorial Drive was closed Monday morning because of flooding.

Elsewhere in the Boston area, strong winds overnight also scattered fallen tree branches and other debris onto the roads, rerouting commuters.

There were also service disruptions on MBTA commuter rail and Amtrak.

Dozens of school districts throughout the state closed Monday, including in Andover, Lawrence and Carver.

The National Weather Service said it clocked winds over 60 mph on the Cape and the Islands early Monday. In total, the storm dropped between 2 and 4 inches of rain on the region, Epstein said.