By: Chelsea Priest, cpriest@abc6.com
As Hurricane Sandy inches further North, National Grid is prepping for the potential effects here in Southern New England. On Friday Morning, National Grid officials admitted that their response time to last years storms did not meet their expectations and did not meet their customers expectations. They do not want that happening with this storm.
National Grid President in Massachusetts, Marcy Reed, said, "it is our complete expectation and objective this time around to meet our customers expectations and not have them feel that level of frustration they did last year." Of course all of us can remember that frustration last year with Tropical Storm Irene and the Halloween snow storm that left so many without power for days. That is why National Grid met Friday with media outlets to get the message out that they are better prepared this time around. Reed goes on, " We have completely re-vamped the process for addressing wires down, for addressing our damage assessment, for creating and communicating our estimated times of restoration, so I think we are in pretty good shape."
Early precautions have already begun. Tree trimming around wires, crew assignments are planned out, and utility workers from around the region are ready to go. The President of National Grid in Rhode Island, Tim Horan, says, "people really should be looking around their homes, putting everything away that can blow around in the wind. Having batteries, having the water, having the supplies they need in case of outages."
Improved communication is another lesson learned from last year, so National Grid customers can receive text messages and e-mail alerts with updates on outages, and also the company will provide restoration information on twitter and facebook.
