Fabulous story in today’s Eagle-Tribune on some of the frustrations faced by New Hampshire residents who still do not have power. The numbers — which were at more than 400,000 homes following the recent ice storm — are at a couple of thousand now in New Hampshire. That sounds like good news unless you’re one of those people.
Eagle-Tribune reporter Margo Sullivan chronicles the story of Donna Cloutier, whose house was dark for 12 days. It wasn’t just the amount of time that frustrated her, though, but the lack of communication from power company Unitil. Here’s a good example of what she was dealing with:
“Every time I got in touch with Unitil,” Cloutier said she heard the same story.
“The work’s done,” the customer service representative would say.
“Right,” Cloutier would reply. Of course, the work wasn’t done.
Unitil has been criticized for being slow to respond to the storm, that hit so many homes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Recovery was slow going all around, but National Grid managed to have its customers largely restored while Unitil was still limping along. I did some Christmas shopping in Leominster last night where there was a wrapping station staffed by Fitchburg High students. The kids I talked to said most of them were still without power two days before Christmas and more than a week and a half after the power outages. Their service provider was Unitil and they were none too happy — espcially considering their National Grid neighbors had power restored a week ago.
Noah R. Bombard is the new media editor for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover. He is a former award-winning newspaper and magazine editor who has been covering news in Massachusetts since 1997.