“We understand it’s very frustrating for everyone, but it is a time-consuming process,’’ said Caroline Allen, a spokeswoman for NStar, which had 200,000 customers without power yesterday afternoon.
Allen said that restoring power can involve clearing trees, replacing cables, fixing transformers, and coordinating with repair crews from phone and cable companies that share utility poles. NStar brought in 45 extra crews from outside Massachusetts yesterday, each one consisting of one or two employees, but it will take days to repair the power lines, Allen said.
Another factor that delays the arrival of repair trucks at customers’ homes: The utility companies have to prioritize their work, first fixing lines that pose a danger to public safety and that feed power into hospitals, police, and fire stations. Then they focus on the main transmission lines that serve the largest numbers of customers.
“After that, we have to go house to house, restoring single lines to single homes,’’ Allen said. “That takes a tremendous amount of time.’’
Without electricity, some Massachusetts residents turned to social media and their smartphones for news updates and to vent their frustrations.
Timothy Regan and his family, who live in Plymouth, lost power at 10 a.m. on Sunday. He said he called NStar, but did not have any luck reaching someone. Before the family’s power was restored yesterday afternoon, he used his smartphone to access the electric company’s website for updates and posted updates on Twitter about his problems with the power company.
“I think that is what people are most angered over, the lack of communication,’’ Regan said.
Allen responded with a request for patience. “The sheer number of outages is staggering,’’ she said. “We’re doing the best that we can, but we’re also asking our customers’ understanding.’’
