NEW: National Grid Restores Power for 50% of Customers Affected by Hurricane Sandy
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Restoration and repair work continues across Rhode Island. By mid-morning on Wednesday, October 31, National Grid had restored power to more than 74,000 homes and businesses, or more than 60 percent of the approximately 122,000 customers across the state who were affected by Sandy. Half of those who lost power during the storm had service restored within 24-hours since high winds and heavy rains caused massive outages across the Northeast. The company expects to fully restore the remaining 48,000 customers by Friday, with possible isolated restorations happening on Saturday.
National Grid crews have been working around the clock to bring electric service back online, restoring 40,000 customers in the first 12 hours alone. All of nine substations that were knocked out of service by wind, water and felled trees are now back to carrying full loads.
With hundreds of road closures, National Grid is working closely with state and local officials to safely and quickly restore power, including the Rhode Island State Police, the State of Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT), the Department of Public Works and the National Guard.
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National Grid also is restoring natural gas service to customers in Newport after temporarily suspending service yesterday as a precautionary measure while the system was evaluated to ensure it had not been compromised by the storm. Customers in Newport will have natural gas service restored as electricity is restored.
In portions of Westerly, the natural gas distribution system was heavily damaged by coastal flooding. National Grid is developing a plan for the reconstruction of that area. Natural gas service that was interrupted in other parts of the community will be restored as electric power returns.
