POWER UPDATE: Areas Being Worked On

At this time yesterday, there were about 2,400 power outages in North Andover. As of this afternoon, the number was down to about 1,000.

Emergency Management Director Jeff Coco met with a liaison from National Grid today at the North Andover building, and we were able to get progress updates for several areas without power.

Here are the areas earlier today:

Village Green Condominums: This is the number one priority at this point, Coco said. There are about a couple hundred units in that complex, and some residents are operating on generators and have reported serious health issues requiring ventilators and other electric medical equipment.

The truck at Village Green is from New York and is still waiting on a primary cable truck.

Mill Park Condominiums: That complex, with about 150 units, is next on the priority list and is being worked on today.

Salem Street: Salem Street has a line running on it from a substation located near the intersection of Salem and Dale streets. The line runs from there northeast up Salem Street and the Boxford Street area. While National Grid and Emergency Management are aware of the individual problems with branches, etc., the entire line must be swept through from the substation through the line northeast.

"Live lines down have to be addressed, and before they can do that they have to clear from the substation to that point," Coco said.

That area is being worked on today, and Coco hopes to have most residents there back with power today.

Stonecleave Street: As of this morning, Stonecleave Street was out. Stonecleave is part of the above mentioned Salem Street area line and is being worked on today. Residents said they saw a National Grid truck parked there but nobody working outside near it.

The truck is there to feed information to the crews working on that line.

"The guy is sitting there because they [crews] might be 8 miles away working down that line," Coco said. "The white pickup trucks are basically like the scouts, they sit there and type in assignments."

Forest Street: Much of Forest Street still has no power, and that street is on the same Salem Street area line mentioned above. Crews are working toward Forest Street now.

Thistle Road: This is off of Abbot Street, which is on that same Salem Street area line and will be worked on today as well.

Sullivan Street: That street is off of Boston Street, which is another line but is being worked on today.

Great Pond Road between the Country Club and Brooks School: Coco said that area is back with power.

Gray Street: That was worked on today and should be up now.

Glencrest Drive: That is being worked on right now and should be back with power today.

South Bradford Street: That was fixed and reportedly has power now.

Massachusett Avenue: That very condensed area is being worked on today. About 20 percent of that area is still without power. They are working on the area where Massachusetts Avenue meets Middlesex Street now.

The above areas are where higher densities of outages are.

"If we hit those, we’re going to be down by another 500 [outages], so we should have our list down into the triple digits once those are addressed," Coco said.

After that, it will be a matter of addressing the smaller clusters of outages and single home outages.

Check back with Patch for further updates.