Unitil Corporation, (unitil.com), a provider of natural gas and electricity to customers in New England, is preparing for potential impacts from Hurricane Henri late Sunday and into Monday.
"With the ground already completely saturated with rain, peak winds associated with Henri have the potential to pull whole trees over and cause significant damage to the areas in New England hit hardest by the storm."
Media Relations Manager, Alec O'Meara
According to the most recent forecast, Tropical Storm Henri is expected to reach hurricane strength this weekend and make landfall in southern New England during the day on Sunday. Locally, heavy rains and wind gusts approaching 45 miles per hour are possible in Unitil’s service area during the peak hours of the storm, with higher gusts possible in coastal areas. Such winds have the potential to cause outages on the system, as otherwise healthy trees and branches may be brought down on lines, causing damage. Additionally, flash flooding may occur in some interior areas, causing damage and impacting regional travel.
Due to the serious nature of the storm, Unitil has proactively secured additional third party crews to bolster resources and currently plans to open its System Emergency Operations Center Sunday in order to coordinate its response efforts, should outages occur.
“With the ground already completely saturated with rain, peak winds associated with Henri have the potential to pull whole trees over and cause significant damage to the areas in New England hit hardest by the storm,” Unitil Media Relations Manager Alec O’Meara said. “We will be monitoring the track and intensity of Henri very closely over the next 48 hours and we urge all to follow the guidance of state and local officials in order to remain safe as the storm passes.”
We recommend our customers prepare by checking and making an inventory of the following items:
- Flashlights and fresh batteries
- A battery-operated radio and clock
- Bottled water, canned foods and a manual can opener
- A list of important phone numbers and a car charger for cell phones if applicable
- A first aid kit.
The windy conditions have the potential to take wires to the ground. In the event of downed wires, assume all cables and wires that have fallen or dangling are energized and stay away. Be sure to avoid wet ground or puddles near a downed lined because 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.
Customers experiencing outages should call 1-888-301-7700.
You can also report outages online at unitil.com/report-outage.
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.
