NORTON After a destructive brush with Hurricane Sandy, more than 2,400 utility crews fanned out across Massachusetts and the Attleboro area to begin restoring power to nearly 200,000 blacked-out electric customers.
Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts, said at a press conference in hard hit Norton late this morning that repair and restoration efforts began in earnest Tuesday, as soon as it was safe for crews to operate. She said power failures, which affected as many as 237,000 customers from the Cape to the Berkshires, was down to 197,000 by noon.
In the Attleboros, as many as 9,000 homes and businesses were without power with the worst effects coming in Foxboro, Norton, Seekonk and Rehoboth. At its peak, the storm knocked out power to more than 3,000 homes each in Seekonk and Rehoboth.
At one point, 75 percent of homes in Foxboro were blacked out.
Reed, in a hardhat and reflective vest, spoke with reporters on Freeman Street in Norton, where multiple crews worked to restore power to that neighborhood. They were repairing a crossbar that connects local customers to a distribution line.
We have many transmission lines that are down, substations that are flat and downed poles, said Reed, adding that the widespread power failures were about half the size of those during the aftermath of last year s Tropical Storm Irene and a pre-Halloween snowstorm.
She said much of the damage occurred on the South Shore, South Coast and the Cape, where the storm s winds were buttressed by a heavy storm surge.
Foxboro s Union Loop power feeder, blamed for massive power outages in that town during last October s snowstorm, was also affected by Sandy, causing a loss of electricity to thousands. Reed insisted the loop itself did not fail, but that breakage to crossbars and insulators seemed to indicate that the force of the winds blew out some of the infrastructure.
Power was still out in 10 to 15 percent of Foxboro homes in the northwest section of town late this morning, according to National Grid .
The company has crews working in town and was aiming but wary of promising to have power restored to most homes sometime today, National Grid liaison Tom Coughlin told selectmen in a 10 a.m. emergency meeting at Town Hall.
Many of the homes without power are in the area roughly between North Street and part of Mechanic Street.
Foxboro Public Schools will open Wednesday after being closed for two days because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy.
People can re-charge their cell phones at town hall.
While critical of National Grid for the scope of Foxboro s outage, town manager Kevin Paicos said the company and town DPW crews did extensive tree pruning work over the past six months.
Among the few trees that fell in this storm cutting off power, most were on private property, officials said.
Selectman Chairman James DeVellis expressed anger at National Grid for the third multi-day power failure in Foxboro in two years, noting that Foxboro suffered a wider loss of power than other area communities, as also happened last year during Tropical Storm Irene and a snowstorm last October.
The company serves 7,900 Foxboro homes and businesses, of which 1,610 were without power as of 6 a.m. today.
But Reed maintained that National Grid has made a number of improvements to damage assessment, repair and communications with local communities following last year s twin storms.
Last year we did not meet our customers expectations, we let them down, she said at the Norton press conference Since that time, we ve made a large number of process improvements. I m quite confident that this time we are going to meet our customers expectations.
In the meantime, downed trees and wires continue to cause problems in Norton.
We still have a pretty good amount of streets that are closed, Norton Fire Chief Paul Schleicher said this morning.
Route 123 from the Easton line to Newland Street remains shut down with power failure from the Easton line to Route 495.
Woodward Street, Fern Lane and Freeman Street are also shut down.
The town s highway department is working on clearing Fern Lane, said selectmen Vice Chairman Bob Kimball.
Kimball and Schleicher described working with National Grid as frustrating.
A lot of stuff that they promised at our meetings on last year s storms didn t happen this year, Schleicher said.
Schleicher advises staying away from all power lines.
Three lines went down on Pine Street last night and were found to be live this morning, he said.
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