Power providers Eversource and National Grid say they are making progress in restoring electricity to the Cape, Coast and Islands.
Doug Foley is in charge of electric operations in Massachusetts for Eversource. Thursday morning he said they made a lot of progress overnight, and all power should be restored by Friday.
“We feel very focused in on getting the last customer restored," he said on a County emergency services call. "So, that’s really our plan. We’ll continue today and tomorrow."
Foley said Eversource has about 2,000 crews in the region, working to restore power to customers on the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard, as well as in Plymouth and New Bedford. The largest concentrations of remaining outages are in Falmouth, Brewster and Provincetown.
National Grid said about 1,100 customers were still without power on Nantucket Thursday morning, when five additional crews made it to the island on the ferry.
Barnstable County emergency coordinators say regional and local shelters remain open on the Cape for those still without power. Wednesday night shelters in Barnstable, Yarmouth, Harwich, Provincetown, Mashpee and Dennis served about 370 people, along with several cats and dogs, and even a Guinea pig.
Mike Walker, of the county’s Multi-Agency Coordination Center, says they’re starting to switch gears from emergency response to long-term recovery.
"Think of this as kind of getting to the long-term response, more toward the recovery end … what that looks like as power starts coming back online and you have burst pipes and different things," he said. "You know, we want to start thinking about those long-term processes and needs."
The Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority said it is back to a normal schedule after the storm. CCRTA had made 260 trips to and from shelters as of Thursday morning. Pets are allowed on buses going to and from shelters.
Hundreds of Massachusetts National Guard personnel were deployed in Southeastern Mass. to help with storm recovery. According to a Massachusetts National Guard spokesperson, 30-plus service members were working in Bourne on Thursday. Service members also helped with snow removal and delivering supplies to regional shelters this week.
State and town road crews continue to work on snow removal throughout the region. At a news conference in Fall River on Thursday, state highway administrator Jonathan Gulliver acknowledged that there's still work to be done.
"We really appreciate everybody's patience," he said. "We know this is frustrating, especially if you're currently snowed in. We are working with our municipal partners to get to you and to open those streets up."
Many districts have had to cancel school for the rest of the week as the big dig-out continues.
