Whitman: Emergency Management Center closes as the number of power outages decrease

Twenty four-hours after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, about 59% of Whitman, or 3,800 residents, were without power.

“That was mainly because of several main feeding lines that had gone down between Brockton, East Bridgewater, and the Abington substation. As of last night that number dropped down to just over 1,000 and has of this morning it’s down to five,” says Whitman Fire Chief Tim Grenno

Chief Grenno is also the Director of the Emergency Management Center and says National Grid’s response time was 100% different from previous storms because Whitman partnered with surrounding inland communities like Bridgewater and Hanson, “We tried a different approach to the storm. We broke the National Grid service area up to clusters of four or five towns with one fire chief as the liason for those towns to National Grid so there wasn’t 20 fire chief trying to call there was only five and that worked out exceptionally well.”

Although only a handful of Whitman residents are without power, hundreds of other National Grid customers in towns like Norwell and Scituate are still in the dark. According to the electric company’s estimates, power will likely be restored Thursday around midnight for most South Shore residents.