National Grid Makes $250,000 Donation for Hurricane Irene Relief to the American Red Cross of Northeastern NY

ALBANY, NY (09/01/2011)(readMedia)-- As National Grid continues to make significant progress on the restoration of power to its customers in upstate New York impacted by Hurricane Irene, company officials today presented the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York with a donation of $250,000 to assist area residents in recovering from this historic event. Charitable donations by National Grid to chapters of the American Red Cross and United Way in its northeast U.S. services areas will total $1 million to help communities help those residents most severely impacted to get back on their feet as quickly as possible. The company has also pledged to match dollar-for-dollar employee donations made to either of these organizations for hurricane relief.

As National Grid crews continue their power restoration efforts, the company reports that power has been restored to more than 90 percent of the 1.4 million customers in New York and New England who lost electricity during last Sunday's hurricane due to Irene's damaging winds, torrential rains and flooding. Irene's historic winds extended outward as much as 90 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds extended outward as much as 290 miles. In addition, Irene dropped record amounts of rain on many areas over an extended period of time late Saturday and Sunday.

"While restoring power has remained our top priority since early Sunday morning," says Tom King, president of National Grid in the US, "we also realize that the impacts of Irene have gone well beyond the power loss in many of the communities we live and work in. The people whose homes and businesses have been devastated aren't just our customers.

"They are our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, and in many cases, our own employees. Our crews are still working – but we wanted to do more."

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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