Concerns rise after thousands of residents are still without power from Nor’easter

BLANDFORD, MA. (WGGB/WSHM) - Thousands of households in the Bay State are still in the dark following this week’s nor’easter.

As utility companies work diligently to restore the power, some customers are growing frustrated.

Western Mass News spoke with one Blandford woman whose been without power since early yesterday morning.  Now, she says she is eager for the lights to come back on.

“It’s still off,” said Sgt. Ostaff. “I’ve had multiple electrician people come to my house and ask me if I have power, which I don’t I’ve had multiple calls from Eversource saying my power is back on, but it is not back on.”

Sgt. Crystal Ostaff and her family who live in Blandford have been in the dark since 5:30 Tuesday morning.

The mother of three says she and her husband purchased a generator during the storm so they wouldn’t be left completely without heat.

“We don’t even have heat right now because our heat is electric through oil, and we can’t hook that up to the generator currently, so we are using space heaters to have some sort of heat,” said Sgt. Ostaff. “When I woke up this morning it was 50 degrees in my house.”

We asked Eversource spokesperson Priscilla Ress the question that’s on many people’s minds, when can we expect to see the lights come back on?

“We have substantially restored power and by 10 o’clock tonight most of our customers should have their power back on,” said Ress.

She explained that utility crews are finally nearing the finish line.

“It’s just such a tremendous accomplishment by our crews working in treacherous conditions,” said Ress. “But all 17 towns have crews assigned to any outage, so all outages are being worked on.”

Ress continued and said Eversource has already restored power to more than 54,000 customers throughout western Mass.

While Ostaff is eager for the power to come back on, she said she is grateful for all the hard work crews have been doing throughout the storm.

“I really appreciate all the hard work; I see trucks everywhere getting the power restored,” said Sgt. Ostaff. “I hope it gets restored soon.”

Ress told us this storm was particularly tricky because of all the downed trees and power lines the area has seen.  She also says she is proud of how quickly crews have been able to restore power and grateful to customers who she says have been incredibly patient during this time.

Copyright 2023. Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.