Eversource crews working to restore power amidst fears of second wave of outages

WESTFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - Thousands were still without power Tuesday night as restoration and clean up efforts were underway throughout the region.

As of Tuesday night, about 50,000 houses here in Massachusetts were in the dark as local DPWs and utility companies worked hard to turn the lights back. Eversource officials said that they are anticipating a second wave of outages.

“Trees have been the number one impediment, the number one cause of outages,” Eversource spokesperson Priscilla Ress told us. “We had crews come back to us and say, ‘We used to see one tree down on the line. With this storm, we are seeing six at a time.’”

Tuesday’s Nor’easter brought heavy snow and high winds along with it, which created widespread power outages throughout the Bay State. Downed power lines and tree branches also complicated clean up efforts for local DPWs, including in Westfield, according to the department’s acting director, Francis Cain.

“It was kind of a mixed bag storm as far as we had downed power lines, and we had to go around power lines,” Cain told us. “Roads were blocked off with downed trees and that type of thing, and that was out of the norm from just removing snow from the roads.”

Eversource told us that they were also ramping up service here in western Massachusetts to combat the widespread outages.

“We are going to concentrate our efforts on western Massachusetts by starting to bring in contractors we had assigned in the east that are going to start moving in waves to the west,” Ress said.

In Westfield, clean up efforts will not wrap up until Wednesday morning.

“Overnight, obviously as things arise, we will take care of those, be it treatment, and then tomorrow, we’ll dress things up and we will be in good shape,” Cain said.

Ress told us that hundreds of crews are positioned here in western Mass. and more crews are expected to travel west in anticipation of a second wave of outages expected to hit the area.

“This second wave is going to be tough. We have trees that are already loaded with snow, loaded with ice, and now, you’ve got more snow, and now, you’ve got this heavy wind coming in,” she said. “It’s a matter of strategically placing those crews where they can respond quickly, safely, and be as close to where we expect the damage.”

Ress also said that crews have been working as quickly as possible to restore the power. As for exactly when people should expect to see their power come back on, Ress said that one is harder to predict. She did, however, call this a “multi-day storm.”

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