Extended Power Outages in Massachusetts May Last Several Days

Utility companies in New England are currently focused on restoring electricity to over 100,000 customers following a significant blizzard that impacted Eastern Massachusetts on Monday.

Some areas may experience delays in power restoration that could extend for several days. “The last couple customers, unfortunately, will be a couple days out,” stated Doug Foley, President of Electric Operations at Eversource, during a press briefing.

National Grid also communicated to its customers that complete restoration may take additional time. Chris Laird, COO of New England Electric for National Grid, added, “There could be some stragglers that go into Thursday, but we’re going to work really hard to have everybody on by Wednesday night, at midnight.”

Throughout Tuesday, both Eversource and National Grid prioritized restoring power. By 7 a.m. on Tuesday, National Grid reported that over 94,000 of its customers had lost power during the storm, while more than 71,000 had their service restored.

As of early Tuesday afternoon, approximately 220,000 Eversource customers remained without power, even as the company had already managed to restore service to around 170,000 users, according to spokesperson Olessa Stepanova.

The severe winds during the blizzard hindered the restoration efforts, particularly for crews working with bucket trucks. “We faced high winds, blizzard conditions, and significant snow drifts. Winds reached as high as 80 miles per hour on the Cape,” Stepanova explained. “Under such conditions, our teams cannot operate bucket trucks.”

In anticipation of the storm, both companies developed coordinated emergency response strategies. “We had crews pre-positioned on Martha’s Vineyard and other areas that were likely to face accessibility challenges. Planning for the storm began days in advance, enabling us to deploy crews to the hardest-hit regions starting over the weekend,” Stepanova added.

For example, National Grid had already placed crews on Nantucket before the storm’s arrival. “To bolster restoration efforts on Nantucket, we positioned teams on the island ahead of the storm and dispatched an additional ten utility and forestry crews as we address damages caused by winds exceeding 80 mph,” a company statement revealed.

Reports indicate that Cape Cod and its islands bore the brunt of the outages, with several towns completely without power by Tuesday night.

Both companies mobilized extensive teams to tackle the restoration process. National Grid reported over 560 field crews actively engaging in outage responses, while Eversource confirmed deployment of “thousands of personnel and hundreds of contractor crews” throughout the region.