The NStar crew, four men early in their third 18-hour day in a row, jumped out of their trucks and began assessing the situation. Jack McManus, the crew’s senior supervisor, studied a diagram of the neighborhood’s electrical grid.
“Trees,’’ he said to no one in particular, “the root of all evil.’’
As Irene exited Massachusetts Sunday night, NStar marshaled hundreds of repair crews like this one, to restore service to an estimated 250,000 of its customers. By yesterday afternoon, working street by street, and sometimes house by house, they had reduced that number to 60,000. National Grid, which had 500,000 Massachusetts customers without electricity at the storm’s peak, was down to 152,000 customers without power yesterday afternoon.
Yet both utilities were still guarded in their promises, telling customers that in many cases, power would not be restored until possibly the weekend, highlighting how agonizingly slow the restoration process can be.
Yesterday, this NStar operations crew was one of 521 the utility had working to restore power in the state. An additional 118 tree crews were also out, clearing trees and tangled limbs ahead of the electric workers. National Grid reported yesterday that more than 3,500 employees in New England were “engaged in service restoration.’’
National Grid has also taken its restoration to the sky, conducting daily helicopter surveillance of its transmission lines. Yesterday, Peter Flynn, president of transmission for National Grid New England, took a flight along the North River on the Massachusetts-Vermont border.
“These lines are so remote that a helicopter is the most efficient way to go,’’ Flynn said, “and in fact, we discovered some significant damage to the transmission towers from flooding.’’
On the ground, McManus’s NStar crew launched its day from the company’s Waltham service facility. After a general briefing around 6:30 a.m., the crew got its marching orders - a list of five locations to check out in Burlington.
