Continuing Isolated Power Outages In Tiverton and Little Compton

Nearing four days without power, a handful of cutomers throughout Tiverton and Little Compton are the only National Grid customers in Newport County without electricity.

National Grid announced today at 5 p.m. that it had "restored power to nearly all customers affected by the blizzard." Of the 150 Rhode Island customers still without electricity, 5 are in Little Compton and another 5 Tiverton.

In Tiverton, neighborhoods began turning their lights back on as early as Saturday afternoon, while the vast majority of Little Compton remained in the dark until power was restored throughout the day on Monday.

Despite challenges such as huge snow banks, narrower-than-usual roads and limited access to some facilities, National Grid has restored power to nearly all of the 187,000 customers who lost service. Crews are actively working on each of the remaining outages, and the rest of the customers are expected to have power tonight.

If any customers are still without power, they are urged to call National Grid immediately at 1-800-465-1212. Sometimes when a street or neighborhood is restored, there may be a problem with an individual home or business that prevents it from being re-energized.

In the wake of its hurricane-force winds and as much as two feet of snow, the blizzard left more than 1,400 reports of wires down, broken poles and damage to the high-voltage back bone of the Rhode Island electric grid.  At the height of the storm, more than 187,000 customers were without power, with the southern part of the state and the East Bay taking the brunt of the storm.

Crews from 26 states and Canada worked alongside National Grid crews, often in difficult and frigid conditions, to bring light and heat back to customers.  Hundreds of additional personnel worked behind the scenes to support the field crews.

Before the storm and throughout the restoration process, National Grid kept in close contact with state and local officials to keep them informed of the status of repairs, and so the work progressed as quickly and safely as possible.  National Grid community liaisons were assigned to each community’s emergency operations center to serve as a dedicated link between the company and local leaders.

“We are grateful to all of the state and community officials who worked hand-in-hand with us to expedite the restoration. This is invaluable partnership enables us to do the best possible job for our customers,” said Tim Horan, president of National Grid, Rhode Island.  “We also appreciate our customers’ patience during this very challenging and difficult time.”

Horan urged customers to continue to be careful as they walk and drive around while municipal and other crews continue to remove snow and make repairs.  He also cautioned property owners who have natural gas service who remove snow from their roof to avoid dumping it on the gas meter to avoid damaging it and causing a gas leak.