National Grid Focused on Completing Restoration

More than 900 crews are working in the Merrimack Valley alone and other parts of the state to bring back service to customers

March 10, 2018 – WALTHAM, MA – Following 10 days of non-stop public safety and restoration efforts as a result of two back-to-back Nor’easters, National Grid is making its final push to restore electricity to all customers who lost service during Winter Storm Quinn.

National Grid has more than 540 line crews, 200 tree crews, and 189 wires down and damage assessment support crews working in the hardest-hit towns in the Merrimack Valley today. Crews also continue to restore remaining customers in other parts of the state, including the North Shore.

The storm impacted nearly 307,000 of the company’s Massachusetts customers. National Grid has restored power to 92 percent of the customers impacted by Winter Storm Quinn statewide, and 88 percent of customers in the Merrimack Valley have been restored as of 4:15 PM.

“While we’ve made significant progress, we know that for our remaining customers without power, that doesn’t matter,” said Cordi O’Hara, president and COO of National Grid in Massachusetts. “Our crews continue to work long shifts, straight through the night, so we can get the vast majority of customers restored by late tonight. We will continue working tomorrow to resolve the last of the outages that impact individual customers.”

Winter Storm Quinn was the second of two Nor’easters that hit Massachusetts in less than a week. The two-day storm blanketed the Middlesex Valley, North Shore and Western parts of the state with heavy, wet snow that caused extensive tree and power line damage. National Grid was fully prepared for Winter Storm Quinn, retaining the crews from 15 states and Canada that it had secured for Winter Storm Riley. The first Nor’easter struck on March 2 and was officially declared a “bomb cyclone,” bringing torrential rain, hurricane-force winds, and coastal flooding, with the greatest impacts to the Massachusetts South Shore.

National Grid was completing restoration efforts for Riley as the company began planning for Quinn. In all, the storms led to a peak of nearly 723,000 total power outages for National Grid customers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In Massachusetts, outages from Riley peaked at more than 241,000, and Quinn caused nearly 307,000 to lose power during the worst of the storm.

As always, National Grid urges customers to take precautions to stay safe, and provides several ways to stay connected and up-to-date on the important information about outages and service restoration.

Report or Check Outages

Customers can check or report power outages in the following ways:

• Log into the report/check outage page on National Grid’s website. This is the best way for customers to check the estimated restoration time for their specific address.
• Go to the National Grid app and click on “report outage.”
• Call 1-800-465-1212.

Safety Messages

We urge customers to watch out for their own wellbeing and the safety of utility crews working during the storm. Here are some tips to help keep everyone safe:

• If you use a generator to supply power during an outage, be sure to operate it outdoors. Before operating generators, disconnect from National Grid’s system by shutting off the main breaker located in the electric service panel.  Failure to do this could jeopardize the safety of line crews and the public.

• Never touch downed power lines, and always assume that any fallen lines are live electric wires. If you see one, report it immediately to National Grid or your local emergency response organization.
• Power problems can sometimes interrupt public water supply systems or disable well pumps, so it’s an especially good idea to keep a supply of bottled drinking water handy, as well as some canned food.
• People who depend on electric-powered life support equipment, such as a respirator, should let National Grid know. To register as a life support customer, call the company’s Customer Service Center at 1-800-322-3223.

If you lose power, turn off any appliances that were on when the power went off, but leave one light on so you will know when power is restored.