Town Manager: 'Unforgivable' What is Happening on McAdams Road; Power Restored at 4 p.m.

UPDATED 4:10 p.m.

McAdams Road residents now have power and soon heat, as NSTAR was making the final connection for a home at 3:50 p.m. Friday, as Framingham Town Manager Bob Halpin watched the crews work. He said they had cleaned up the wires and the mess, and was connecting the final home on the street.

Halpin called Framingham Patch to report that the McAdams road sitiation, which he called "Unforgivable" earlier today had finally been fixed; but he reiterated he was still not happy with NSTAR's efforts, specifically with that road.

Framingham Patch is also happy to report that Tastings Caterers had power restored just before 4 p.m. too

Halpin said residents in the 900 range of Grove Street also had their power restored, after having been without electricity and heat since Monday.

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at 1:45 p.m. NSTAR is reporting 75 customers in Framingham without power.

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UPDATED 11:30 a.m.

Framingham Town Manager Bob Halpin said he is "very dissatisfied" NSTAR did not meet its deadline of Thursday night.

He said he was told the 49 customers still with power each received a personal phone call, but questioned if that did happen.

Halpin called the situation at McAdams Road, which was supposed to be fixed Thursday, "completely unforgivable and goes beyond understanding how they could leave those wires and that mess at the end of that road."

Halpin said after the dangerous situation at Potter Road and eaton was fixed, the town asked that McAdams Road be one of NSTAR's 3 priorities. "It is unforgivable what is happening on McAdams," said Halpin.

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At 8:15 a.m. NSTAR issued this press release ... "NSTAR system restored to normal operations.  Please remember our online outage map is a real-time reporting tool and therefore includes outages not related to Hurricane Sandy.  Anyone still without power as a result of the storm should call us at 1-800-592-2000 right away. We are now moving resources to Connecticut to assist our extended Northeast Utilities family at Connecticut Light & Power."

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As of 7:30 a.m. NSTAR says its number of customers without power is down to 42. Of those still without power is Kerry Dunne and her neighbors on McAdams Road.

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Thursday, before 5 p.m., power was restored to First Parish and the nursery school, that has about 75 students, housed in the church's meeting house basement.

"We are so happy," said FCNS Director Jacey Norton, who said the NSTAR contractor from North Carolina restored power within minutes after arriving, by "just flicking a switch."

First Parish in Framingham Unitarian Universalist Church and Framingham Centre Nursery School were not to have power restored until Friday, until Framingham Town Manager Bob Halpin made a call to NSTAR on their behalf.

As the outage on Vernon Street was linked to a single connection, NSTAR had given it a lower priority; but when Halpin explained that one connection would affect more than 70 people, it was moved up on the priority list.

At noon Thursday, NSTAR was reporting less than 1% of Framingham still without power or about 234 customers.

Halpin said the town identified three projects that would restore dozens of customers at once. One of those priorities was

"This is not the 1% I had hoped to become part of! My mom just drove over and reports that McAdams Rd. is still the land that NSTAR forgot, Kerry Dunne told Framingham Patch mid-afternoon Thursday.

At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Dunne said she had yet to see an NSTAR truck and the wires were still scattered all over her road.

Her neighbors were just as frustrated; and one posted the homemade sign featured with this report.

Some residents did see power return Thursday, including those on Buckminister Street.

But others were not so fortunate. Susan Merrill Tsantes told Framingham Patch there are three homes in the 900 range on Grove Street still in the dark late Thursday night.

NSTAR had promised to return power to everyone in Framingham by Thursday night.

But Thursday afternoon, Halpin told Framingham Patch, that NSTAR said it would restore power to all multi-connections by Thursday night and that singular connections may not be until Friday.

On Monday at 11 p.m., the Town of Framingham had a high of 22% of the community or  29,674 NSTAR customers without power.

In a press release Thursday, NSTAR wrote "Since Sandy impacted the region on Monday, NSTAR crews have restored power to nearly 400-thousand customers and efforts are continuing to repair the damage currently affecting the remianing customers."

“As our crews remain intensely focused on the remaining damage and outages caused by Sandy, we want to commend all of our NSTAR workers and contractors on their outstanding work,” said Werner Schweiger, President
of NSTAR Electric. “We expect a lot from everyone involved in our restoration efforts because our customers deserve nothing less, and our workers were up to the task.”