Unitil Corporation, (www.unitil.com), a provider of natural gas and electricity to customers in New England, is down to single service outages in New Hampshire following a band of gusty winds passing through the regions earlier today.
As of 6:30 p.m., approximately 2,600 customers are without power, down from a mid-day peak of 29,000. Of those, approximately 2,550 customers are out in Massachusetts and less than 100 in New Hampshire. Outages peaked at approximately 5,000 without power in New Hampshire earlier today.
“While crews made tremendous progress during the day, there is still work to do tonight and into tomorrow in Massachusetts, where it appears we saw the most severe winds,” Unitil Media Relations Manager Alec O’Meara said. “We recognize its cold out there, and we’ll keep at it until we get everyone back on.”
A compliment of approximately 50 crews, comprised of bucket, tree and wires down personnel, are working in the four towns Unitil serves in Massachusetts as part of the restoration effort. Unitil expects to have the majority of the remaining customers on by noon tomorrow, though some single service issues may extend into the afternoon. As restoration is ongoing, customers are urged to call in to customer service or to report with their mobile device if they remain without power if they see others in their street or neighborhood get restored.
“With a fast moving, fluid storm like this, outages can occur within other outages,” O’Meara said. “Never assume someone else has reported an outage impacting your home, because the information we get from customers is helpful as we plan out our response.”
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:
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For the NH Seacoast Area: 1-800-582-7276
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For the NH Capital Area: 1-800-852-3339
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For Massachusetts: 1-888-301-7700
You can also report outages online at http://www.unitil.com/report-outage.
