BOSTON — So far in 2012 the average temperature in New England has made history ... it’s been among the warmest winters and springs on record. And it's hard to remember any cool day after a heat wave like the one that hit at the end of June.
 
But although we sweltered as June transitioned into July, June may go down in the books as a month of average or slightly below temperatures, Mike Rawlins of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst said: "The numbers that I'm seeing are 66.8 degrees, which is just about a degree less than the average. And that's probably largely due to those cooler-than-normal temperatures that we had at the beginning of the month," including a couple of days in the mid-50s.
 
As for the rest of the summer, everyone who's scheduled their vacation for the next two weeks could be in the pink. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate prediction center forecast for early to mid July puts New England "at an above-average probability for warmer-than-normal temperatures … and about average precipitation," Rawlins said.
 
Over the rest of the summer, most of the U.S. is projected to be hotter than average. But NOAA gives New England an "equal chance above-average or below-average temperatures," Rawlins said — meaning we might escape a scorcher.
 
 

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A girl drinks from a tap in Rwanda. (jon gos/flickr)

We look at the increasing scarcity of water.

As the world’s population explodes, from 7 billion to 10 billion, will violence erupt over water the way it has over other natural resources, like gold, oil and diamonds?

Who will control water? And how much will it cost to access?

Guests:

• William Moomaw, director, Center for International Environmental and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

• Shafiqul Islam, director of the Water Diplomacy Initiative; professor, Tufts School of Engineering

• Lisa Sorgini Marchewka, vice president, Oasys Water

The weather in Greater Boston as of 1 p.m. on June 7, 2012. (Google)

 
BOSTON — Despite the chill temperatures the week of June 4, Boston and Worcester have actually experienced the warmest spring since records started being kept in the late 1800s — and Hartford tied its record this year.
 
"If you average over January through May, we are well above average," said Mike Rawlins, a professor and manager of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst.
 
Does this warm year bode long-term change? Rawlins said that despite variability from year to year, it does indeed point to a larger trend.
 
"We have been on a trend toward warmer springs, warmer years … the second-warmest spring on record now is 2010" for Boston and Worcester, he said. "So climate scientists would tell you, and we're in agreement, that the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to a warmer climate."
 
And if you're cold now, just wait a few days, Rawlins said: Temps are forecast to rise into the upper 80s.

 
BOSTON — This week in Massachusetts state politics, the casino oversight board meets, officials commemorate the Western Massachusetts tornadoes and Springfield hosts the Democratic state convention.
 
On Tuesday, the Massachusetts gaming commission holds its weekly meeting. The commission has been under pressure to move quickly and plans to start evaluating proposals for casinos in January. The meeting comes after two major casino operators — Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Wynn Resorts  — abandoned plans to build facilities in Massachusetts. Industry watchers say this could mean less competition for the Greater Boston license, leading to lower bids or less ambitious projects.
 
On May 30, the House of Representatives takes up a bill that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote. The bill would also authorize random audits of voting machines to make sure they work properly.
 
On Friday, the governor and lieutenant governor head to Western Massachusetts to commemorate the anniversary of the June 1, 2011 tornadoes. The storms destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. Insurance claims topped $200 million and three people died.
 
> > WATCH: Tornado damage lingers
 
And on Saturday, Massachusetts Democrats travel to Springfield for the state convention. Consumer advocate and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren is expected to easily win the party’s nomination to the U.S. Senate. But North Shore immigration lawyer Marisa DeFranco is also gathering steam. She will likely get the 15 percent of delegate votes needed to qualify for the primary ballot.
 
> >  READ:Marisa DeFranco isn't going away
 

 
BRIMFIELD, Mass. — Dry weather and high winds have firefighters battling brush fires throughout the Northeast. The about 4,000 residents of Brimfield, between Worcester and Springfield, have plenty to fear.
 
It’s the perfect combination of all the worst ingredients: toppled trees, dry gusts of wind, pine needles parched and brittle. Brimfield State Forest has become a forest-sized fireplace.
 
“In these conditions right now, it wouldn’t take much more than a cigarette butt and you could get this pile to start burning and burning rapidly,” said Dave Celino, chief fire warden of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
 
But it wasn’t a cigarette that set parts of the forest ablaze the week of April 2, threatening homes already ravaged by last year’s tornado. Celino said it was a legal, permitted fire pit. It’s something that wouldn’t have been such a problem a year ago when a dense forest kept winds weak and vegetation moist.
 
“Then June 1, 2011, the tornado hits and did this obvious damage,” said Celino. He looked out over acres and acres of downed, dried out trees. “We actually lost 100 percdent of the forest canopy. All of this fuel here that’s on the ground is now unshaded. We’re talking about fuels that are super, super dry." He snapped a twig to illustrate its aridity. "This is what we call very receptive to fire ignition.”
 
And the fire threat isn’t contained just to Brimfield. Edward Lambert is the commissioner of the Department of Recreation and Conservation. He said a nearly snowless winter and a moderate draught have left much of the state poised for a potentially fiery summer. Flames have already flared in Randolph, Saugus and Worcester.
 
With “that lack of snow pack and the dry season that started back in November, the winds now — the dry Canadian winds that are coming down — are really creating what is for us the highest fire hazard season in about 10 years," Lambert said.
 
Worse yet, the fire season started about 2 months earlier than usual.
 
To hedge the odds in Brimfield, state workers are taking the fuel for the fire away. Large machines chopped and ground the flammable tornado debris, creating a 100-foot fuel break off the road.
 
Lambert considered it the most practical solution to a 600-acre problem.
 
“We did take out about 9,000 dead trees out of Brimfield State Forest last year and in this particular phase we’re in, we’ll take about another 25 to 30 acres out,” said Lambert. By creating these fuel breaks, "if there was a burn it would only go to a certain level and protect the public.”
 
Lambert said it was also up to local residents to do their part to keeping the problem from getting worse.
 
“Folks in Brimfield and Munson and some other places really have to try to determine that to try to keep dry timber near your home in these conditions is probably not a good thing,” he said.
 
Still, no matter how careful people and state workers are, the threat of fire can’t be completely eliminated: The likelihood this year is just too high.
 
“If we flick 10 matches out there, six of them are going to start fires,” said Celino.
 
Not the best of odds when the season is just beginning.
 
 
 

MONSON, Mass. — It’s been over nine months since tornados ripped through Massachusetts, destroying lives, homes and communities in seconds. But for towns such as Monson, the passage of time has meant little. Homes still aren’t restored; debt is mounting, and so is the frustration.
 
Monson is literally scarred with buildings obliterated and acre upon acre of downed trees. Once lush with woods, a miles-long swath of the town is now a skeletal landscape. Town hall is shuttered, its police housed in trailers. The once grand church tower is capped and clad in plywood. Main Street’s most historic home is an anemic, haunting relic. And the community is exasperated.
 
“We ask that question constantly: When can we ever go back home. We want to be home,” said tornado victim Donna Gilman.
 
Directly in the tornado’s path, Donna and Tom Gilman’s stone home survived although the inside required complete gutting. Water damage is extensive with signs of mold. There are gaping holes in exterior walls. Work is at a standstill, though. The Gilmans said their insurance company cut them off.
 
“The roof had to come off," Donna Gilman said. "It’s much more extensive than they thought. We got some monies from the insurance company and now have to wait to see if they’re gong to give us any more money.”
 
In the interim, the couple and their two cats have crammed into temporary housing: a nearby condo.
 
“You feel helpless because you don’t know where the money is going to come from," Donna Gilman said. "You want to make sure that you know everything is going to be okay but you don’t feel like everything is okay. You have all these sleepless nights, health issues and everything else that goes along with the stress of a disaster.”
 
The Gilmans live just off Bethany Road where rebuilding is rampant. More than 20 homes had to be demolished in this neighborhood; another 20 were severely damaged. There is at once growth and gravity with reminders of what’s lost — possibly forever. A sign at the edge of a vacant lot reads Welcome to our home. Several hundred feet away is a large pile of rubble, with a child’s scooter jutting out of the bottom.
 
With a grim view of it all across town is Ken Bailey. What had been his home nestled in five acres of trees is now a vastly barren hilltop.

"You can get depressed if you let it get to you because it’s, you come home everyday and just look at it and you think all the work that still has to be done,” he said.
 
When you ask Bailey what happened to his house, the faster question might be what didn't happen.
 
"Basically, all the windows were blown out. Siding gone. Roof gone. Roof was torn off. The garage on the other end of the house, the doors were blown off, which blew out the back wall so structurally that was ruined. Everything in the garage was out on the front lawn blowing down the hill. The barn on the other end of the house was blown," he said.
 
Bailey has been able to rebuild his home without hassle from the insurance company. However, insurance hasn't covered his barns, the $75,000 he said it cost him to replace the trailers for his concession business and $60,000 to remove trees piled 8 feet high all around his yard.
 
"We’ve spent a fortune doing what we’ve done," he said. "We’re out of money. We're in debt up to our eyeballs just to get where we are." Bailey is in his 60s. With all his savings gone and new debt, the disaster has ruined his dreams of retiring.
 
Bailey said that like many in Monson, he’s received little assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies like the Small Business Administration. It can be a struggle to go on. After the first night he stayed in a motor home in his driveway, he saw his property and started to cry.
 
"What do you do? You know where do you go? And it was just — if it wasn’t for my friends coming up, excuse me, and starting, I don’t know what I’d do," he said. But "you’ve got to keep moving forward. And that’s the problem, a lot of people you’ll see around town stopped. And you can’t do that.”

It seems like we’ve been talking about a changing climate for a long time. In 2006, Al Gore made a documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth,” which threw the issue further into the spotlight.

But while debate, discord, and discussions about the climate continued, from the Kyoto Summit to the Copenhagen Accord, the world kept right on industrializing.

Recent estimates show that America produces about 18 metric tons of carbon per person per year — compared to about 5 tons, for example, for Argentinians.

But, as a country, our aggregate pollution was overtaken years ago by China, where the middle class is hungry for TVs, washing machines, and refrigerators. And where, on average, a coal-fired power plant opens every week.

So, today, we look at the climate and how we are beginning to adapt to a new world. We start with a discussion of the changes we may face.

Guests:

• Frank Lowenstein, climate adaptation strategy leader, The Nature Conservancy

• Minor Sinclair, U.S. regional director, Oxfam America

Adapting To The Future

Part 1:
 

Part 2:

We’re talking today about how our lives will change in response to climate change — and the steps we can take, through innovation, to adapt to these issues. Will we see shifts in the availability of certain foods? Changes in the way cities, towns, and farms are constructed?

Guests:

• Margaret Christie, special projects director, Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture

• Janot Mendler de Suarez, research consultant, Oxfam America

• Eric Walberg, Senior Program Leader, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences

• Frank Lowenstein, climate adaptation strategy leader, The Nature Conservancy

• Minor Sinclair, U.S. regional director, Oxfam America

> > Are you concerned about climate change? Comment on this story, let us know on Facebook or tweet @wgbhnews with the hashtag #climatide.

Part One: Warm Winter, Big Questions

Scientists predict that Massachusetts could have the climate of the Carolinas by late this century if global warming continues unabated. With temperatures several degrees above average, this winter has brought a taste of what may be to come. And some wonder if that’s really such a bad thing. In the first installment of our four-part series, we explore the disparity between the scientific consensus and public opinion on climate change.

Web Extra: The psychological impacts of climate change

Part Two: Fisheries in Hot Water

Lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine have posted record harvests in recent years. But in the waters just south of Cape Cod, the situation is dramatically different. Lobster populations there crashed a decade ago and have not recovered, leaving lobstermen to face the potential closure of their fishery. We take a look at one of the most dramatic examples of how climate change is affecting New England’s fisheries.

Web Extra: A warming world? See for yourself

Part Three: The Rising Seas

In part three of this week's series on climate change, we look at the threat rising ocean levels pose to the state's coastline — and to the policymakers who will be forced to face tough questions. But does it have to be bad news?

Multimedia: A three-dimensional animation of sea level rise.
Web Extra: Cape Cod's disappearing dunes

Part Four: Mitigation and Adaptation — the Birds' Lessons for Us

In the final installment of our series, we take a look at state officials' attempts to find the right balance between stopping climate change and preparing for it, with guidance from the avian kingdom.

Web Extra: With global warming, new birds in our skies
Massachusetts' clean energy and climate plan for 2020 (pdf)

BOSTON — Though February's not over yet, all indicators are that this month will likely to go into the books as the fourth-mildest February on record. And while the season’s paltry snowfall has been lethal for New England ski resorts, it’s been a boon for commercial banks and builders. Sarah Coffey, financial services reporter at the Boston Business Journal, explained that beyond the balmy weather, banks are making loans to support the work.

 
SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Thursday marked two years since the devastating earthquake tore apart Haiti. The quake killed 220,000 people and left at least 1.6 million homeless. Boston is home to about 100,000 Haitians, making us the fourth-largest Haitian community in the nation. Today, many are frustrated at the pace of recovery… and the flow of financial aid.
 
The Haitian Coalition operates from a small apartment in a housing project just blocks from Tufts University. Lince Semerzier, who runs the bare-bones office, said the Haitian Coalition has been struggling financially to keep up with the needs of people who moved here after the earthquake:

"You have a lot of great organizations, Haitian organizations that are doing more with less," he said. The coalition is one of a number of groups that have been instrumental in providing services — "mental health support services and also working on finding shelters for families."

On this day volunteers are taking calls from Haitians from Somerville out to Pittsfield who are frustrated about the conditions of family members and friends left behind in Haiti. Two years after the earthquake, most are still living in temporary housing built by the Red Cross and other organizations.

Semerzier was recently in Haiti. "You should see what they’re building. It's like little boxes — and they're calling them houses," he said.

Melinda Miles, a Haitian American from Northampton, works in Port-au-Prince for TransAfrica. "It’s true that there were billions of dollars pledged and also donations that came in from various NGOs," she said. "What we’ve seen is that despite that fact there were over one and a half million people displaced, very little of the money has actually gone for the construction of housing."

TransAfrica is one of several organizations monitoring how money is being spent in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. "One of the goals that was set in the first year… was to build 125,000 transitional shelters. Now we're at the two-year mark and there still aren't even 100,000 shelters," Miles said. That means more than half a million people are living under tarps and tents.

Michael Delaney is with Oxfam America, based in Boston’s North End. He agreed that two years after the earthquake, housing remains the most intractable problem. But, he said, non-governmental organizations, including Oxfam, are dealing with a major catch-22: Before they can move people out of the camps and help them rebuild, the government has to deal with the issues around land.

"There’s a lot of open land that can be used for new housing programs but there hasn’t been a bold action" to use it for low-cost housing, Delaney said.

Yet increasing numbers of Haitian Americans blame the slow pace of development in Haiti on the non-governmental organizations themselves. Semerzier described it as"an international mafia." He criticized groups such as Oxfam and the Red Cross for not hiring qualified Haitians and Haitian Americans for jobs in these projects.

Semerzier’s organization is competing for the same limited pot of money for development work in Haiti, and that may color his opinion. But a new investigative report by an independent journalism group, Haiti Grassroots Watch, concurred with many of Semerzier’s concerns.

Read the report.

"A foreigner will get eight times what a Haitian will get for the same work," said Jane Regan, a college professor and journalist in Port-au-Prince.

Where does the money go? Some has gone to good purposes, such as cholera treatment pills for the water supply and tarps, she said. However, "there has been little accountability and also little participation of the actual eventual beneficiaries, and therefore there has been a lot of waste."

Haitian organizations and watchdog groups also point out that a good deal of the funds earmarked for Haitian development and relief in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake have helped save lives and jumpstart an economy that had been left for dead. A few weeks from now, the Haiti Coalition of Somerville will take a delegation of medical professionals to Haiti from the Cambridge Health Alliance. They will be accompanied by Haiti Grassroots Watch. That way, Regan said, no one will have to wonder where resources go once they reach Haiti’s shores.

Britney was a communications major at Lynn University in 2010 when she joined a humanitarian mission trip to Haiti. She was distributing meals to the country’s poverty-stricken children. The experience changed her, something she shared with her parents in a text message:
 
“They love us so much and everyone is so happy. They love what they have and they work so hard to get nowhere, yet they are all so appreciative. I want to move here and start an orphanage myself.”
 
Three hours later, a devastating magnitude-7 earthquake leveled much of Haiti.
 
At first, relief: The family was told Britney had been found alive and was heading back to Florida. They packed their bags and headed down to Florida to meet her. Then, devastation: When they got to Florida, the family learned Britney was still missing.
 
“We were told our children were safe and rescued,” Britney’s father Len Gengel told reporters at the time. “And now we’re told they’re not.”

Thirty-three days after the earthquake, Britney’s body was pulled from the rubble of the Hotel Montana. She was the last of six Lynn University students and professors to be recovered. The university remembers the students killed in the quake.

In their grief, the Gengels remembered Britney’s text message: “I want to move here and start an orphanage myself.”
 
In September 2010, the Gengels bought a perch of land overlooking the water for $50,000 in the southwestern town of Grande Goave. Britney was supposed to visit there with her mission group the day after the earthquake. A year after the quake, the family broke ground on a 19,000-square foot orphanage, with a medical clinic and outfitted with solar panels. The best part: The building will be earthquake-proof.
 
Shaped in the letter “B” for Britney, the building will be home to 33 boys and 33 girls. The number represents the number of days it took for Britney’s body to be recovered. The Gengels say they're not sure yet how those 66 children will be chosen — there are now roughly 2 million orphans in Haiti — but they want the orphanage to house “true” orphans: children who have lost both parents.
 
The Gengels hope to welcome 66 of them by the three-year anniversary of the earthquake that took their only daughter.

BOSTON — Maybe it’s the traditional New England Yankee conscience. As we run around in December in T-shirts and no gloves, many fear we’ll have to pay for this warm fall with another devastatingly cold and snowy winter —  a possibility that seems to draw nearer as rain and snow moved up the East Coast on Wednesday.
 
It really has been that warm. This has been “the all-time warmest autumn on record for the Boston area,” National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sipprell told WGBH News’ Bob Seay on Dec. 7. The average temperature was 58 degrees — 4 degrees higher than usual. Records go back to 1870.

However, you may be able to tell your conscience to chill out. Sipprell made no guarantees but said temperatures will likely be at or above average this winter. In fact, he said, “There hasn’t been a period within the last 100 years where we’ve had a very warm autumn and then the following winter thereafter has been below normal.”
 
There’s another factor that suggests warmer temperatures: Sea ice in the Arctic tends to create an influx of cold air into New England — and the ice levels are low this year.
 
The precipitation forecast is more, well, hazy. There isn’t a strong relationship between autumn conditions and the amount of rain or snow that falls in the winter, Sipprell said.
 
Skiers and snowboarders, and the businesses that depend on them, might be in trouble. Along with the possibility of warmer temps, Sipprell noted that recent storms have tended to turn inward instead of staying on the coast. If that pattern continues, “it’s definitely going to be an issue of concern for those ski resorts,” he said.
 
As usual, we’ll just have to wait and dig out the ice scrapers just in case… and the umbrellas.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The headlines have faded, but western New England continues to rebuild after June tornadoes and Tropical Storm Irene. Our partners at WGBY in Springfield, Mass. have been covering it all along. In these three segments, residents, business owners, emergency responders and members of the media tell their stories of the storms and their aftermath.  

Flooding in Shelburne Falls, Mass.

Voices from the story:

Pub owner: "I got out of the building quick and went across the street and watched the river rise for the rest of the day."

Quiltmaker: "My studio floated down the river."

Gallerist/framer: "The FEMA and Small Business Administration require mounds of paperwork. They are very kind, open-hearted individuals. But bottom line is that it's a bureaucracy."

Small manufacturing president: "Our desire is to be in business. We want to keep the families of our employees happy and healthy."

Flooding in Brattleboro and Jamaica, Vt.

Voices from the story:

Brattleboro, Vt. restaurant owner: “After five years of building up the restaurant, it happened in three or four hours… I was positive that we could get this work out and clean up and start again. We can. But it’s going to be a long uphill battle.”
 
Jamaica, Vt. resident: “I probably did about 60 miles of hiking just to see where people’s houses were.”
 
Jamaica, Vt. emergency worker: “A lot of local excavating contractors came in and filled where we’re standing now, which was a 30-foot-deep hole.”

Remembering June's Tornado

Remembering June's Tornado from WGBY on Vimeo.

Voices from the story:

Meteorologist: “Really unheard-of. This is really a moment of history that deserves all of the historic treatment that it gets.”
 
The Republican executive editor: “We got over 3 million page views.”
 
News photographer: “Oftentimes when we cover disasters or murders or accidents, we’re not welcome. People don’t want to see cameras intruding on their lives. This was a different story…. People welcomed us with open arms. They wanted to tell their stories.”
 

Visit wgby.org for additional coverage.

BOSTON — The state Department of Public Utilities is opening a new investigation into National Grid's response to the late-October snowstorm that left hundreds of thousands without power. Meanwhile, residents and area officials are still expressing their frustation at the utility's response to Hurricane Irene.

On Tuesday, a small crowd, including state and local elected officials and fire chiefs,gathered for a public hearing in Brockton as part of the latter investigation.

Customers complained of a lack of communication with local public safety departments. Patricia Vinchesi, the town administrator of Scituate, lambasted National Grid for giving out what she called dishonest information.

“If communities had been given candid information as to when power would be restored, all communities could have adjusted their efforts more efficiently. But what happened was that local personnel and officials bore the burden of anxious, angry and worried residents, who day after day could not get an answer to when will my power be restored,” Vinchesi said.

Both Hurricane Irene and the snowstorm left hundreds of thousands of customers without power -- some for over a week.

BOSTON — After finally restoring power to all its Mass. customers, National Grid defended its response to the snowstorm that hammered the state in late October.
 
On WGBH’s “Greater Boston” on Nov. 7, National Grid Massachusetts President Marcy Reed denied the claim that the company’s lax tree trimming was a reason for the recent blackouts.
 
“We spend $23 million every year in Mass. trimming trees. Could we do more? Of course; you can always trim more trees,” she said, adding that the company trims as much as towns will allow.
 
But with the Oct. nor’easter, “no amount of tree trimming would’ve helped it. We had personal trees in front yards coming over into the street, taking down equipment,” Reed said.

Attorney General Martha Coakley has requested an investigation of the utility companies’ response to the storm. Coakley’s office and the state Department of Public Utilities are already investigating the response to Tropical Storm Irene.

Meanwhile, on Election Eve, Rep. Dan Winslow wished residents could vote for power companies with their feet. Since they can’t, he’s proposed a bill to return money to consumers when the power goes out for extended periods of time.
 
“I proposed the power outage rebate bill because I want to change the cost-benefit calculus for the execs,” he said on “Greater Boston.” “I want to make it so cost-prohibitive to have the power go out that it’s then worth it [for utilities] to spend the relatively short money up front for maintenance, infrastructure, Smart Grid and the like.”

BOSTON — With about 200,000 Mass. residents and businesses still without power on November 2, Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley said her office would request an investigation into the utility companies' response to Oct. 29's historic storm — and representatives of the public and of the companies debated the best way to prevent future problems.

"Our office has received a variety of complaints regarding the power restoration process by the utilities," Coakley said in a statement. "Once power has been restored throughout the Commonwealth, we will petition the Department of Public Utilities to initiate a formal investigation into the companies’ restoration efforts, including their preparedness for this storm as well as their communications with local officials and customers in its aftermath."
 
State Rep. Dan Winslow, R-Norfolk, discussed a bill he was proposing on "The Emily Rooney Show" on Wednesday afternoon. It would require utility companies to reimburse customers two days' worth of utility costs for each day they go without power.
 
He thought that would speed utility companies' response in future storms. “The reason that I proposed the power outage rebate bill was to create a market force, basically a financial incentive on the back end, to make failure so expensive that prevention then makes economic sense for them,” Winslow said.

Craig Hallstrom, vice president of electric operations at NStar, defended the company’s response to host Emily Rooney: “We have a very well-documented and –rehearsed storm response plan…. We mobilized very quickly.” He called it “a full, all-out response.”
 
As for the suggestion that companies relocate electrical wires underground, Hallstrom said that wouldn’t solve the problem. “Underground isn’t necessarily the silver bullet. When you put lines underground it’s a harsh environment as well, between water, salt, chemicals coming in off the streets. [And] the investment is significant.”
 
A better long-term solution, he said, was collaboration to keep tree branches out of the wires. When leaves are soaked with wet snow or whipped by wind, those trees break and take those wires down.

Hallstrom said, “I think most people, when they’re out, they can see the major source of the outages is trees. We at the utilities trim aggressively… but we only can go so far. It’s really a partnership between a community, the private customer and the state.”
 
Winslow was skeptical.
 
“If utilities have a utility easement, which they have, sure, they can’t cut down a private owner’s tree next door — but the branches that encroach on the easement certainly can be taken down by the utilities. And it’s no answer to say, well, towns have to step up because towns can’t even afford teachers and firefighters and cops right now,“ he said.
 
Hallstrom said that 6600 NStar customers were without power as of noon on Wednesday, mostly in the Waltham-Walpole-Framingham region. He hoped to get “the vast majority” of those customers plugged back in by late that night.

BOSTON — The preliminary Mass. State Police report on Lt. Gov. Tim Murray's Wednesday-morning crash backed up Murray's claim that ice caused him to lose control of the car

Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Tim Murray totaled his state-issued Crown Victoria at around 5:00 a.m. Wednesday on Interstate 190 In Sterling. “I’m OK. There was damage to the vehicle. People need to be careful, myself included,” he said at a press conference that morning.

According to the police report, the investigating officer nearly fell when he got out of his cruiser "due to icy road conditions in the area of the crash." That officer also witnessed a near-crash due to the conditions.

Murray told reporters he was out getting a paper and surveying storm damage when the accident happened. 

When reporters asked him why he was looking at storm damage in the dark, Murray said he’s always been an early riser: “I was driving up in the area seeing what was going on up in Route 190, and going back. As I drive around routinely, I think people around the city, people around Central Mass., get constituent work from me at different times.”

Murray said he requested an alcohol sobriety test at the scene and passed. This was not addressed in the preliminary report. A state spokeswoman said in an email that the full report would be available Thursday.

Murray Car Crash Preliminary Police Report, 11/2/11

BOSTON — Four days after a surprise snowstorm swept across the region, Nelson Butten of Lawrence was still living in the dark. 
 

It started while he was downstairs in the lobby of his apartment building around 9:00 p.m. October 29. “Basically I just heard a big boom,” Butten said, “and next thing I know, the power in the common areas, everywhere, it went off." It came back only in the building's common areas. On the morning of November 2 his own apartment continued to have no electricity.
 
A community organizer, Butten did see an upside to the crisis: It brought people together.
 
“People are hanging around the lobby,” he said. “They’re all talking to each other, they’re eating pizza, sharing stories — but also wondering when the power is going to come back on. We don’t have heat.”
 
To keep himself warm and his provisions cool, Butten went to a friend’s house Sunday, bringing along everything from his fridge.

BOSTON — Though the snow has been melting, more than 350,000 Bay State homes and businesses remained without power Tuesday morning after the historic nor’easter on October 29.
 

Some customers might need to wait until Friday for their power to come back on. An October 31 update from National Grid put the estimated time of power restoration at 11:45 p.m. on November 4 for a number of towns, including Clinton, Ayer, Sturbridge and Leominster. In several towns, 100 percent of that utility’s customers were in the dark: Bolton, Brimfield, East Brookfield, Goshen, Hampden, Hardwick, Harvard, Holland, New Braintree, Oakham, Wales, Warren, Wilbraham and Williamsburg.

WGBH's Sarah Birnbaum reported that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said power would be restored "house-by-house, block-by-block" at an October 31 press conference. He said there were an “unprecedented” number of crews on the ground —1500 — and that the power companies were calling in help from as far away as Louisiana, Texas, Michigan and Canada.
 
Since leaves were still on the trees, the weight of the wet snow caused branches to break, Patrick said. 

He declared a state of emergency for Massachusetts and asked the federal government to do the same.
 
The utility companies' response

In the wake of recent storms, utility companies have faced pressure to improve response times and communication with local officials. 
 
Massachusetts Energy Secretary Richard Sullivan, who oversees the utilities, said at the press conference that they’re doing a better job this time around.
 
“There’s been a lot of lessons learned, both from the ice storm and Irene, as well as the tornadoes,” he said. “There’s been more crews brought in earlier and pre-positioned.”
 
Communication has also improved, Sullivan said, with communities reporting “that they’re getting much better information, much quicker from the utilities.”

Patrick has declared a state of emergency for Massachusetts and asked the federal government to do the same.

In one town, a stadium lit up and houses dark

In Foxboro, 90 percent of residents were without power on the morning of October 31 — and furious with both National Grid and the New England Patriots. And no, not because the Pats lost Sunday. 

Some Foxboro residents claim Patriot Place, which is back up and running, gets its service fixed before residents. It happened after Tropical Storm Irene. Early Sunday evening, it happened again.

Patriots spokesman Jeff Cournoyer had a simple answer for that: The Patriots do get their power back first. But they pay for it, and it's not from Foxboro.

"After experiencing a power outage at Foxboro Stadium during 1996 AFC Championship game, the Kraft Group expanded the Wrentham substation to create a redundancy, with one power feed coming from the Wrentham substation and one coming from the Foxboro substation. That redundancy guaranteed that we would still have power if the feed was lost from one of the substations," Cournoyer said in an email.

"We do not own or operate the feed. We simply financed its expansion to protect our business and other businesses on the Route 1 corridor are currently serviced by it. We are currently only receiving power via that substation and, like most Foxboro residents and businesses, not receiving power from the Foxboro substation."

The October 31 National Grid update gave November 3 at 11:45 p.m. as the estimated time of power restoration in Foxboro.

Resigned to potentially several days without electricity, resident Raymond McKenna showed a reporter from WGBH's "Greater Boston" his own creative solution: He stashed a cooler of orange juice, milk and cold cuts in the snow.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.

National Grid Power Restoration Estimates, Oct. 31, 2011