Utilities struggle to restore service

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

Utility crews representing local electricity providers worked into the night Thursday to restore power to thousands of regional customers still without power after a major storm system ripped through the Valley around midnight.

Sandra Ahearn, spokeswoman for the Western Massachusetts Electric Co., said when it came to the number of area customers left in the dark, Wednesday's storm was "second only to the ice storm of December 2008," which left more than 1 million state residents without power.

"We had to get the roads open before we could get crews in there to repair downed lines," Ahearn said.

She said the company dispatched a helicopter patrol and more than 120 line crews Thursday, most of which were working alongside private contractors and crews from sister utilities to clear felled trees and repair damaged lines.

"We are going to be working around the clock until power is restored to all of our customers," Ahearn said. The company expects to restore electricity by this evening to the approximately 1,600 Hampshire County customers still without power at 9 p.m. Thursday.

National Grid crews were also working overnight Thursday to return power to scores of Valley customers. Of the utility's 30,000 Hampshire County customers, more than 100 were still powerless in Belchertown, Granby and Northampton as of 9 p.m. Thursday, according to a report on the company's website.

Although she didn't know how many customers were without service Thursday, Verizon spokeswoman Ellen Cummings said interruptions were widespread and every effort was being made to restore service to all those affected.

Phone and Internet provider One Communications also spent much of Thursday clearing trees rather than repairing lines. Spokeswoman Amy Ashe said outages persisted in Northampton and Greenfield.

"We had poles knocked down by trees and what happened was we couldn't get access to the point where we were replacing fibers until about 3:30 this afternoon," Ashe said. "We are hoping to have service restored to all of our customers by sometime Friday morning."

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.