Community Corner

National Grid Says Power Should Be Restored to Most by Midnight Thursday

As of mid-day Thursday, all but 30 Grafton households had power.

National Grid crews are out restoring power to those that are still in the dark after Hurricane Sandy and said that nearly all customers should have power by midnight tonight.

In a teleconference this afternoon, National Grid president Marcy Reed said that crews have been out restoring power to customers across the northeast for over 48 hours since beginning on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., when the power company decided it was safe to begin working.

Reed said that, as of 3 p.m. Thursday, power has been restored to 97 percent of National Grid customers. Roughly 5,600 customers are still without power.

Find out what's happening in Graftonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In Grafton, 30 of the town's 8,088 electric customers are out. That number was whittled down from 182 Wednesday evening.

"The lion's share of our customers [without power] will receive power by midnight tonight," said Reed.

Find out what's happening in Graftonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Reed said crews will most likely have a number of remote areas and problem sections that they will have to deal with tomorrow morning. However, she said that all customers should have power back by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

At the peak, National Grid reported that a total of 237,000 customers were without power due to Hurricane Sandy.

"It is very clear to me that there are a number of people we need to thank. Our customers [in particular]," said Reed. "They have been patient, they have been understanding and they have been sharing feedback with us."

In a conference earlier in the week, National Grid officials commented on how their response to Hurricane Sandy differed from Irene and Snowtober last year.

By the end of Tuesday, half of the customers had power restored in the first full day after the storm pulled out of Massachusetts. During Hurricane Irene and the “Snowtober” snowstorm just before Halloween last year, that mark was not reached until at least day 2 or day 3 in most communities.

“We were quicker out of the box” in Hurricane Sandy, Reed said.

Patch Local Editor Robert Gates also contributed to this report.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Grafton