More than 115,000 in Massachusetts without power amid storm, utilities say
The state’s two big power companies report more than 115,000 customers without power, with outages centered on Cape Cod, South Shore and South Coast during the ongoing nor’easter that continues to pummel Eastern Massachusetts.
Eversource says it has 107,000 Bay State customers without power as of 1:15 p.m., and National Grid live data shows an additional nearly 9,600 without power as of 2 p.m.
“We have nearly 900 line and tree crews working across the commonwealth to restore power as quickly [and] as safely possible to our customers, including out-of-state crews from as far away as Florida and Michigan,” William Hinkle, a spokesman for Eversource, said in a statement.
Of the more than 1.3 National Grid power customers in Massachusetts, nearly 9,600 were affected with power outages, according to the utility’s outage map data at around 2:10 p.m.
Of National Grid power customers, Nantucket had the highest outage rate, at 4,730 of the total 13,785 customers, followed by Plymouth County with 1,329 of 114,805 customers experiencing outages. Essex County also experienced higher outage rates at 3,065 of 272,928 customers affected. No Suffolk County National Grid customers had experienced outages early Saturday afternoon.
The National Weather Service expects 18 to 24 inches to hit the Boston area during the storm, with some places facing a possible 30 inches, according to Bill Leatham, a meteorologist with the service’s Boston/Norton office. Tidal surges could make for some coastal flooding in the southern Massachusetts coastline, he added.
The heavy snowfall and general storm conditions have challenged some Eversource crew efforts to quickly get to outages, including strong winds keeping workers from elevated repair truck buckets, Hinkle said.
Eversource had deployed crews and supplies throughout their coverage region of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire in anticipation of the storm, the Herald reported Friday.
The power grid throughout the region “continues to operate reliably,” said Matthew Kakley, spokesman for ISO New England, the region’s bulk power facilitator. A precautionary alert was issued ahead of the storm and remained in place Saturday afternoon.
As of 12:45 p.m. Saturday, the actual system load reported by ISO New England was around 17,500 megawatts, only slightly above the forecasted load. The forecasted peak load for the day is 19,500 MW at 5:30 p.m.
This is a developing story.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/BKIyqVvma
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