As a daylong deep freeze settled onto New England Friday morning, several thousand power customers were in the dark across the region, though the worst of the outages may yet be to come.
There were more than 60,000 customers across New England without power around 8:30 p.m., but that number went down to around 25,000 later Friday night. The thermometer was dipping below 0 in northern New England, with wind chills 30 degrees below, and wind chills will stay that low into Saturday afternoon.
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Massachusetts
There were more than 46,000 customers without power statewide as of 8:20 p.m., according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency's outage map. That number was down to 14,100 by 10:45 p.m.
National Grid workers were standing by to address any issues with the utility's infrastructure, a representative said.
"We’re monitoring the weather reports and taking steps to make sure we’re ready to keep our customers warm and safe during this cold snap. We urge our customers to stay indoors and be prepared for the frigid cold,” said Tanya Moniz-Witten, vice president for Electric Operations for New England, in a statement.
NBC10 Boston's cameras were rolling as the power went off in a Chelsea neighborhood Friday night.
"Lights went out and very cold," said Alexandra Jimenez, who was home alone on this frigid night. "I said, 'Oh, oh, we're in trouble.'"
New Hampshire
More than 1,700 customers had lost power across the state's power utility companies as of around 10:45 p.m.
Vermont
There were 25 customers statewide were without power Friday night, according to the Vermont Outages page.
Maine
More than 4,800 customers were without power in Maine around 10:40 p.m., according to Central Maine Power.
Rhode Island
There were scattered small outages across the state Friday afternoon, according to Rhode Island Energy.
Connecticut
Nearly 4,500 customers had lost power in Connecticut as of around 10:45 p.m., Eversource reported.
Cold weather issues to watch out for:
Shelters for unhoused people may become overwhelmed and have to turn people away. In Boston, South Station was being opened to the unhoused.
Transportation could be affected by the cold weather — the MBTA was monitoring its railways for issues and planning to keep as many vehicles inside as possible to protect them from the elements. Transportation officials were warning that people flying to and from Logan airport check about delays or cancellations due to the cold.
With people running space heaters to help stay warm inside, the risk of fire, especially overnight, is heightened. Compounding that, fire hydrants can freeze over in the cold, complicating the response for firefighters, along with the low temperatures and strong winds.
Water main breaks are more likely in cold weather as well.
