UPDATE 5:10PM: Some 29,000 area residents are still without power this evening, mainly along the coast and on Cape Cod. The entire island of Nantucket has essentially been without power all day, with hospitals and shelters there being serviced by generators. National grid, which provides electricity to most of the island has managed to restore power to some areas, but a spokesman for the company says that at this hour, Nantucket still faces a
UPDATED 1/27/15, 2:00 PM Some 31,000 thousand area residents are without power this afternoon, mainly along the coast and on Cape Cod. The island of Nantucket is essentially without power. Hospitals and shelters there are being serviced by generators. National Grid – which provides electric for approximately 13,000 residents on Nantucket – said that conditions are improving, though they cannot estimate when power will be restored. They plan to send three dozen additional crews to Nantucket when ferry service resumes. Massachusetts only nuclear power plant has also been powered down. State officials say that two sets of transmission lines were damaged overnight at the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Plymouth, which led to the shut down. They stress that the shutdown poses no threat to public safety. A spokesperson for Comcast says that internet service is down in areas without municipal power. Comcast has made thousands of public wifi hotspots – normally reserved for their customers - available to the public through noon on Saturday.
As of 12:30 pm.
ELECTRIC: Approximately 34,000 residents are without power, largely along the coast and Cape Cod.
NSTAR: Over 20,000 customers without power. That represents about 2% of their 1.1 million customers.
NATIONAL GRID:
· System has held up through horrific conditions exactly as designed to hold up.
· Zero problems on the gas side - 900,000 customers.
· About 13,300 customers out of service
· The bulk of that 13,300 are on Nantucket.
· Nantucket is essentially out.
· Submarine lines are fine – But significant icing on the equipment .
· This is going to be a large effort to restore.
· Generators have been fired up to try and power hospital.
· Planed for a level 2 storm (as many as a third could lose power – multi-day restoration).
· 850 line crews.
· 350 tree crews .
· Restoration begins as soon as its safe to do so. Bucket trucks fixing lines not practical in this wind.
· DON’T TOUCH A DOWNED LINE.
· Report any outages.
NUCLEAR: Massachusetts only nuclear power plant has been temporarily shut down due to the storm. State officials say that two sets of transmission lines were damaged overnight at the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Plymouth, which led to the shut down. They stress that there is no public safety hazard.
INTERNET:
· Internet is out where commercial power is out.
· Comcast cannot work to restore service where power is out until power is restored.
· There can be cases where you have power but no internet, video, or phone service.
· In these cases it's likely a local problem (the line from your house went down, a line in your neighborhood went down).
· Comcast can work to restore those on their own time since they own those lines.
· They have crews ready to go to work to restore service once they deem conditions safe enough for their drivers and crews.
· If you have power but no internet or video or phone, you should report that outage to Comcast.
· They have several thousand public wifi hotspots throughout the region. They are usually open only to Comcast customers. They have been made available to the public through noon on Saturday.