Community Corner

National Grid: Hoping For Great Progress Tonight

Power has been restored to many so far.

National Grid crews have worked around the clock to restore power to residents, and company officials are assuring residents that great progress has been made and will be made tonight.

"Since the storm's peak, we've restored power to approximately 200,000 customers," said Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts.

The company currently has about 220,000 customers in Massachusetts without power.

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

"We have about 2,500 workers in our communities clearing trees and restoring the power systems," Reed said. "I expect we’re going to make great progress tonight, and I’m hoping to have power back to about half of the customers that we currently have out [by morning]."

Asked what she has to say for the countless frustrated customers across the region who still have no electricty, Reed said the crews are doing their best.

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

"Everyone is weary of sleeping under extra blankets and in shelters... I do know this, I completely understand," said Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts. "However, this storm was historic in proportions, and even after the massive efforts taken, it requires long hours of hard work."

And at this phase of that work, things move slowly in certain communities. That's because now it's a matter of repairing lines street-by-street.

"This means we’re now into the phase of restoration that is most difficult," Reed said. "It can take hours to restore service to a handful of customers."

Since last night, power has been restored to many in North Andover. But there are still pockets of power outages around town, and Reed reiterated that for some people, power may not come back on until Thursday night.

Along Route 114 toward Middleton, there's a large pocket of about 500 customers without power. Along Massachusetts Avenue heading toward Lawrence, there are about 500 homes without power. There are still about 200 customers without power around the Municipal Airport and Lake Cochichewick near Osgood Street. In addition to those, there are several smaller pockets of outages scattered around town that add up to several hundred more outages combined.

If you still don't have power or heat, you can go to a shelter set up at the


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