Efforts to restore power to customers continued Friday morning after tree limbs, weighed down by snow, continued to fall onto power lines throughout the area.
More than 1,300 customers along the Route 66 corridor in Northampton were without power Friday morning after a tree fell on a primary line, said National Grid spokeswoman Aime O’Hearn. Power was restored within an hour, she said.
O’Hearn said numerous outages Thursday night were also restored, and if more power outages occur, crews are ready.
“We are prepared to respond,” O’Hearn said.
About 200 customers served by Eversource throughout the area were also without power, with online outage maps showing that these included 73 customers in Deerfield, as well as three in both Easthampton and Hadley, and one apiece in Amherst, Southampton and Sunderland.
Priscilla Ress, spokeswoman for Eversource, said in an email that all customers should be back online by 3 p.m.
“After yesterday’s snow and rain we’re still dealing with scattered outages as limbs keep breaking under the weight of the snow on trees that still have leaves on the branches,” Ress said
Outages began around 5 p.m. Thursday, starting in the west and continuing to the east.
“The challenge for our crews restoring power is that as we clear trees and make repairs, trees continue to fall, especially in heavily wooded areas,” Ress said.
As of about 11 p.m. Thursday, Eversource reported more than 2,100 customers without power in Hampshire County. Southampton, with 1,250 powerless, and Easthampton, with 653, were the hardest hit.
At the same time, National Grid reported 1,440 without power, all but 113 of them in Northampton.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
