National Grid Mobilizes Crews to Address Damage

National Grid is mobilizing additional crews to address growing damage from a severe wind storm that is affecting service across much of the company's Western Region in New York, and urging consumers to be particularly cautious around downed trees, limbs and power lines.

As of 3 p.m., approximately 35,400 homes and businesses are without electrical service in Western New York, with the hardest hit areas so far in the counties bordering Lake Ontario, particularly in Niagara and Orleans Counties. At its peak earlier today, approximately 38,000 customers were affected.

With gusts in excess of 80 miles per hour, service across the region has been affected by strong winds since early this morning. National Grid's full compliment of line and forestry crews in the region have been active in restoration work, and the company is mobilizing an additional 100 in-house and contract crews to move into the area later today and into tomorrow.

As the winds have not abated, the company is still receiving reports of new outages and has not yet determined when it expects to have all customers restored. It appears certain that some customers could be without service at least into tomorrow, according to Keith McAfee, vice president of electricity operations in New York.

"Until the winds have subsided somewhat, we anticipate that we will continue to receive calls about interruptions," McAfee said. "We are still doing field assessments on the extent of the damage we are seeing and where best to deploy resources, but we do have all available crews working at this hour."

"We appreciate our customers understanding and patience during this event, and also want to thank regional and local emergency responders who are working with us to keep the public safe."

National Grid is reporting much smaller numbers of outages in other parts of the state but is carefully monitoring weather patterns as the storm front moves from west to east.

National Grid continues to urge the public to be safe when moving outdoors in the area. Anyone who sees a wire down should assume that it is live and keep away from it and call 1-800-867-5222 to report it to the utility 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.

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.
• Be particularly careful when removing limbs and branches from your property, as they may be entangled with electric wires.
• 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.
• Have a supply of flashlights and fresh batteries, and know where they are.
• 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.