Unitil Corporation, (www.unitil.com), a provider of natural gas and electricity to customers in New England, made good progress on restoration during the overnight hours and expects to have the majority of customers restored by end of day today.
As of 5:30 a.m., approximately 3,600 customers are without power, down from a peak of approximately 19,000 out late Tuesday afternoon. Of the remaining customers out, approximately 3,100 of those customers are on Hampton Beach, where crews are building a new line across the salt marshes to bring electricity back to the area.
“We have two redundant lines that cross the marshes to bring power to the beach. Both have damage,” Unitil Media Relations Manager Alec O’Meara said. “However, we were already in process on building new lines to feed that region, and engineers and crews are focusing on completing that project to restore customers as the fastest solution.”
The remaining outages are scattered throughout the seacoast region, where damage was most severe during the storm. Unitil reminds customers to make sure their own outage is reported; if you are still without power after your neighborhood is restored, call Unitil customer service to make sure your outage is in the system.
“Outside of the beach, what we are seeing on the coast is lots of isolated outages impacting small pockets of customers,” O’Meara said. “We’ll have fresh crews on the system today, and they will have a full slate of jobs today to pick up all those pockets.”
Unitil will be communicating throughout the event through Public Service Announcements (PSAs), our website, our customer call center and through the media. We also encourage customers to follow along with our storm updates via Facebook, our Twitter feed (@Unitil) and we will be providing real-time outage information online at www.unitil.com/map.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR MEDIA: Unitil asks that when reporting outage information, outlets time stamp the information. Outage numbers change hourly and we wish to make sure the information customers receive is consistent and understandable. Re-Tweets and re-posting of old information without referencing a time can create confusion.
Customers experiencing outages should call the following toll-free numbers:
- For the NH Seacoast Area: 1-800-582-7276
- For the NH Capital Area: 1-800-852-3339
- For Massachusetts: 1-888-301-7700
You can also report outages online at http://www.unitil.com/report-
