National Grid Crews Make Strong Headway in Storm Response; Nearly 80 Percent of Services Restored

BUFFALO, NY (04/29/2011)(readMedia)-- More than 250 National Grid field crews continue to make significant progress today restoring electric service that was interrupted by strong winds that began Thursday morning across large portions of western New York. Service has been restored to more than 30,200 homes and businesses, or nearly 80 percent of the approximately 38,000 who lost service through the day yesterday.

As of 1:30 p.m. today, approximately 7,800 customers remain without service. The company has made repairs and restored service on all distribution circuits in the region, with many of the remaining outages being in areas of severe physical damage or individual customer issues.

A significant majority of the remaining outages are in Niagara and Orleans counties, particularly in areas closest to the Lake Ontario shoreline. These areas sustained the most damage from the winds that were measured as high as 83 miles per hour in Niagara County. The company expects to have the majority of customers restored by late tonight, but cautioned that small numbers of individual customer issues or areas where physical damage was severe could carry into Saturday.

The company is utilizing in-house and contractor crews from across its upstate New York service area, along with contractor crews from Michigan and Pennsylvania to handle issues resulting from the wind storm. Further, National Grid continues to work closely with state, regional, and local officials as the storm response effort advances.

"Our crews and support staff have done very good work in getting debris cleared and services restored, and have done so safely," said Keith McAfee, vice president of electricity operations in New York. "We appreciate our customers understanding and patience during this event, and also want to thank regional and local emergency responders who have worked with us to keep the public safe."

The wind brought down a large number of trees and limbs, which in turn dragged down wires and broke more than 100 poles in the region. While the company has made significant progress in clearing damaged areas, National Grid continues to urge the public to be safe when moving outdoors in the affected areas. Anyone who sees a wire down should assume that it is live and to keep away from it and call 1-800-867-5222 to report it to the company.

Outage information is available at www.nationalgridus.com. At the site, click on "New York," and then click on "Outage Central." Information on the website is updated every few minutes, and includes estimated restoration times for specific communities.

Customers who remain out of service that have not contacted the company are urged to do so, and should not assume the company knows that service is out. Outages should be reported to 1-800-867-5222.

SAFETY TIPS FOR POWER OUTAGES

National Grid offers the following tips for customers to minimize inconvenience and maximize safety in the event that storm-related power interruptions do occur.

• Never touch downed power lines, and always assume that any fallen lines are live electric wires. If you see one, report it immediately to National Grid or your local emergency response organization.
• If you use a generator to supply power during an outage, be sure to only operate it outdoors. Before operating generators, be sure to disconnect from National Grid's system by shutting off the main breaker located in the electric service panel. Failure to do this could jeopardize the safety of crews working to restore power.
• If you lose power, turn off any appliances that were on when the power went off, but leave one light on so you will know when power is restored.
• Power problems can sometimes interrupt public water supply systems or disable well pumps, so it's an especially good idea to keep a supply of bottled drinking water handy, as well as some canned food.
• People who depend on electric-powered life support equipment, such as a respirator, should let National Grid know. To register as a National Grid life support customer, call the company's Customer Service Center at 1-800-642-4272.

National Grid is an international energy delivery company. In the U.S., National Grid delivers electricity to approximately 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island, and manages the electricity network on Long Island under an agreement with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). It is the largest distributor of natural gas in the northeastern U.S., serving approximately 3.4 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island. National Grid also owns over 4,000 megawatts of contracted electricity generation that provides power to over one million LIPA customers.

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