Local News

Outages in Mass. could last days as utilities work to restore power post-storm

More than 100,000 customers were still without power in Massachusetts as of Tuesday morning, with some restoration times posted as late as Thursday night.

Hundreds of thousands in New England are still without power following a deadly storm, and utilities say it will likely be a "multi-day restoration process." Maria Caporizzo/Boston Globe

By Katelyn Umholtz

December 19, 2023

Thousands of residents in New England could be in the dark for multiple days after a deadly storm Monday brought heavy rain, flooding, and strong winds to the region.

The storm also caused extensive damage — there were many reports of trees and debris blocking roads and toppled power lines — which according to an Eversource spokesperson is the reason this could be a “multi-day restoration process.”

Eversource, a utility that services much of New Hampshire and Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts like Greater Boston and the Cape, said during a press conference Tuesday that while the majority of power outages would likely be restored today, power outages would be “significantly over” by Wednesday. Its online outage map gave estimated restoration times for some pockets of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with the latest time listed as 11 p.m. Wednesday for southeast Massachusetts.

Our crews restored more than 20,000 customers overnight, and we're shifting crews to our hardest-hit MetroWest, South Shore, and Cape Cod communities. With more crews arriving to help this morning, we're also focused on restoring power to schools and clearing tree-blocked roads. pic.twitter.com/joTwOjReD7
— Eversource MA (@EversourceMA) December 19, 2023

A spokesperson said that they must assess the damage first, which is currently delayed by blocked roads. The utility is first focusing on areas with large swaths of outages.

Eversource said during the press conference they started planning for the storm as early as Thursday and had secured 450 crews for Monday. But the weather was much more severe than expected.

“We saw very quickly Monday that this was bigger than we first thought, so we jumped on some other crews and brought them in,” said Craig Hallstrom, president of the utility’s Regional Electric Operations.

According to their outage map as of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, around 33,000 customers in Massachusetts were still without power, and nearly 1,700 customers in New Hampshire were in the dark. There were more than 20,000 power outage reports out of Connecticut.

Towns in southeast Massachusetts like Duxbury and Rochester saw thousands still impacted by power outages as of Tuesday afternoon.

National Grid, another Massachusetts utility, posted restoration times on its online outage map as late as 11 p.m. Thursday, which also largely impacted towns in the southeastern part of the commonwealth. But given the extent of the damage and ongoing assessments, a National Grid spokesperson said these are “global estimated times of restoration” and that these times could fluctuate.

The utility was reporting more than 53,000 outages as of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Towns with thousands impacted included Scituate, Norwell, and Pembroke.

It’s normal for outage numbers and Estimated Time of Restoration (ETR) to fluctuate. Work volume, the cause of the outage, and the extent of the damage can all affect our time estimates.
During a storm event with widespread damage, we will often use global ETRs until estimates… pic.twitter.com/3zH4v83J8q
— National Grid MA (@nationalgridMA) December 19, 2023

National Grid had nearly 2,000 workers on the ground responding to the storm, according to a post on X.

The total number of power outages in New England was nearly 600,000 as of Tuesday morning, with impacts mostly in Maine, followed by Massachusetts.

For customers who want individual updates on power restoration, utilities like National Grid and Eversource offer text message notifications for residents who opt in to the service. Customers can also keep track of outages and some information on restoration times using utility outage maps online.