Courtesy of the town of Yarmouth.
HYANNIS – Eversource crews are closing in on restoring the remaining outages across the Cape following Tuesday’s tornadoes and the utility expects almost all customers to be restored by tonight.
Eversource’s army of line and tree crews, including out of state workers helped to complete the power restoration effort much quicker than originally anticipated.
More than 1,000 field resources have worked around the clock to restore power faster than expected, according to Eversource spokesman Reid Lamberty.
“We have gotten approximately 103,000 customers back online and that is because of the hardwork of our crews,” Lamberty said. “They have done a phenomenal job.”
Lamberty said investments made by the company to automated switching also helped to restore power quickly.
Weather conditions after the storm have also helped crews to get the work done more quickly.
“We hit a very fortunate time period with the weather,” Lamberty said.
Temperatures were mild the last few days compared to the extreme heat on Cape Cod over the weekend.
“Had we been working in those conditions I think it’s a potential that things could have been slower,” Lamberty said.
Utility workers require more breaks from working during intense heat and humidity to rehydrate.
“Safety is paramount in any condition and in any circumstance,” Lamberty said. “The fact that it was such nice weather I think it did allow us to get out there and work for longer stretches of time.”
Lamberty said Eversource is also extremely grateful to the town leaders and departments who collaborated in the recovery effort.
“They have given us great help, patience and understanding since the tornadoes touched down,” he said. “It has been a great collaboration and a great partnership and I think that is a big reason why also we were able to get the power back on so quickly because of the partnerships we have with our communities and community leaders.”
Lamberty said it was important to get power restored on Cape Cod so quickly because of the time of year and the region’s economic dependence on tourism.
“They have about a 10-week window where they make money,” he said. “We needed to get those businesses back open. We needed to get those customers power back on. We had people who are renting our customers’ homes who were vacationing and we needed to get them back into the homes and enjoy whatever vacation they could.”
Eversource officials are asking for continued patience from the handful of possible customers who do not have power restored by tonight.
“We will keep our presence out there until the last customer has his lights back on,” Lamberty said.
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