Thousands are still without power in Massachusetts and parts of New England after storms hit the region on Friday.
As of 2:30 p.m. on Sunday there are over 14,000 people without power in the state, according to MEMA.
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Almost 50% of the town of Andover, Massachusetts are still without power on Sunday morning.
The city has opened a cooling center and charging station at the Robb Center on 30 Whittier Court from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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"Most of the remaining 16,000 customers without power are in Andover, North Andover, Chelmsford, and Lawrence, the hardest hit cities and towns in the state. Service should be restored for most of those remaining customers today." said National Grid in a statement today.
“Our crews have been working around the clock since Friday afternoon, and we will remain on the job as long as it takes to restore service to every customer,” said Tim Moore, Vice President for Electric Operations for New England.
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More than 3,000 customers also lacked power in Maine and Vermont. Power authorities in New England said they were working to restore power, and communities were also responding to wind damage that toppled utility poles and damaged homes and vehicles in some areas.
The storm resulted in wind gusts of more than 55 mph as well as heavy rainfall, tree damage and downed power lines, said National Grid, an electric utility serving the Northeast.
National Grid described the storm as “fast-moving” in a statement and said the outages were especially heavy in central and northern Massachusetts. The utility said it’s communicating with local officials and first responders about the possibility of more bad weather in the coming days.
National Grid said it was supplementing its own crews with 50 additional ones to respond to the weather damage. The crews will include forestry workers as well as damage assessors, overhead line workers and others, the utility said.
The New England states were also coping with high temperatures for September, and some schools had canceled classes or after-school activities. High temperatures were exacerbated by power outages and the lack of air conditioning. Boston opened cooling centers.
