National Grid President: 'Sandy' Restoration Efforts Ahead of Schedule

National Grid is ahead of schedule in its effort to restore power following widespread outages following Hurricane Sandy, according to company President Marcy Reed.

Reed, speaking to reporters in a conference call from a Chelmsford parking lot on Wednesday afternoon, said the company’s estimated restoration times were based on having three-quarters of its customers restored by Thursday night.

“We are already there,” she said. “We are progressing ahead of schedule.”

As of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 78 percent of the 237,000 National Grid customers that were without power statewide had been restored.

Melrose Power Outages

As of noon Wednesday, 122 Melrose customers were still without power, according to a National Grid press statement.

"National Grid has two crews in place in Melrose (Wednesday) and they have an action plan to restore electricity to 105 households," according to a city press statement. "The other outages are single homes that have an issue with a private tree or private electric service and require coordination with the homeowner. 

"DPW expect to have all big trees cleared away by the end of the work day tomorrow."

As previously announced, yard waste will be picked up this week and the following two weeks, and the City Yard will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, in addition to regular weekend hours, reads the statement.

The estimated restoration times, released late Tuesday night by National Grid, are for the last customer in each community to get their power restored. In Melrose, that is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday.

“We are pressing ahead as we always have been,” she said, adding she expects that a majority of the customers still without power will have it back by Thursday evening statewide.

Crews continue to work 16-hour shifts with eight hours off, she said.

By the end of Tuesday, half of the customers had power restored in the first full day after the storm pulled out of Massachusetts. During Hurricane Irene and the “Snowtober” snowstorm just before Halloween last year, that mark was not reached until at least day 2 or day 3 in most communities.

“We were quicker out of the box” in Hurricane Sandy, Reed said.

The creation of the “community liaison” position, which puts a National Grid employee in the emergency operations center of each community, is one of the big changes that have been made since National Grid’s response to the two storms last year came under sharp criticism.

While the company has heard “very good feedback” on that position, Reed acknowledged that there is still work to do to make the position more effective.

“In some towns we still have some bugs to work out” with the way community liaison positions operate, she said.

Reed said she would continue to visit towns hard hit by outages and listen to local leaders' feedback about the company’s response.