Patience Urged During Mass. Power Restoration

More than a day after a major nor'easter, much of Massachusetts is still digging out of the snow. It could be days before power is restored across the state. Many portions of central and western Massachusetts were hit particularly hard by the storm.

Scott Macleod from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency joined Morning Edition Monday to discuss how the state is dealing with the aftermath of the storm.

At 8:30 a.m. Monday morning there were an estimated 524,000 customers statewide without power. That's down from a high of 670,000 late Sunday afternoon.

"It's more of a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and in some cases house-by-house restoration, and unfortunately, with the significant number of outages, it's just gonna take some time," Macleod said.

Macleod said they hope to make a prediction about when power will be fully restored later on Monday.

Asked about whether this new round of power outages would have a greater effect after the trouble caused in western Massachusetts earlier this year by Tropical Storm Irene, Macleod replied, "Well, certainly there's fatigue out there. There's fatigue on the part of residents, there's fatigue on the part of local officials, but certainly we're up to the challenges."

Sunday night, about 38 shelters housed 800 Massachusetts residents. Macleod suggested that many of those without power were likely staying with friends or in hotels, but he speculated there would be an increased use of shelters as the power outages continued.

"Patience is key. It's gonna take time to get everyone back to where we were before last weekend," he said. "So be a good neighbor. If you know folks in your neighborhood who need some additional assistance, or they're elderly, knock on the door and make sure they have everything they need, but first and foremost just be patient."