Unitil crews are continuing to restore power in all regions as a powerful nor’easter finally begins exiting the region after dumping high amounts of wet, heavy snow in all service regions.
As of 10:30 p.m., 10,500 Unitil customers are without power, down from a peak of approximately 18,600 midday Tuesday. Of those still without power, approximately 9,800 are in Massachusetts, where the heaviest amounts of wet snow were seen on Unitil’s system. While crews have made progress this evening, gusty winds remain possible through the overnight hours, and new outages remain possible so long as hazardous conditions persist.
“Repairs on sub-transmission lines in off-road areas helped to restore some Massachusetts customers, but we are still expecting this to be a multi-day restoration effort,” Unitil Media Relations Manager Alec O’Meara said. “Crews continue to work overnight in all areas, and once this storm finally clears out, we will deploy damage assessors to get a clear picture of the total damage to the system in order to calculate a global restoration time.”
Heavy wet snow has the potential to damage trees and take wires to the ground. We urge people to always assume all fallen or dangling cables and wires are energized and stay away. Be sure to avoid wet ground or puddles near a downed line, as water conducts electricity. In addition, keep away from all flooded and debris-laden areas because they may be hiding downed lines. Stay in a safe place and avoid driving in damaged areas so you don’t interfere with rescue and restoration efforts.
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 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 1-888-301-7700 or report online at unitil.com/report-outage.
