Thousands of Massachusetts residents remain without power following a storm that ravaged the Bay State beginning on Friday evening.
National Grid officials announced that power was restored to more than 60,000 residents throughout the state as of Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, approximately 12,000 customers remained without power. The majority of those were in Andover and North Andover, according to an outage map maintained by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
The North Andover Town’s online announcement page included an update Sunday, saying they are working with National Grid and that the area outages were expected to be resolved Sunday. Officials also mentioned the Red Cross shelter at the North Andover Senior Center remains open for those in need.
The Town of Andover advised residents that The Robb Center, used for a cooling and charging location, remained open for residents to use until 10 p.m. and will reopen Monday at 9 a.m. About 35% of Andover residents remained without power as of Sunday afternoon, according to the MEMA map.
“We appreciate the continued cooperation and patience of Andover residents as the community continues to recover from this unprecedented storm,” town officials said in an online notification.
Friday’s thunderstorms came with wind gusts exceeding 55 mph along with damages to trees and power lines. National Grid said the company assigned more than 250 damage assessment crews in Massachusetts alone, as the storms impacted thousands of customers in New England.
Lightning from another wave of storms Saturday severely injured a 31-year-old woman walking her dog at Savin Hill Beach. The woman was transported to Boston Medical Center, currently in critical condition, according to officials.
While crews have been dispatched since Friday, power officials said, they have and will continue to work when the conditions are safe to do so.
“Our crews have been working around the clock since Friday afternoon, and we will remain on the job as long as it takes to restore service to every customer,” Tim Moore, vice president for National Grid’s Electric Operations of New England, said in a statement. “We understand, however, that success is measured by each customer having service and we will not slow down until that has been accomplished.”
