Power outages keep parts of Manchester in the dark
MANCHESTER — Several power outages around town have caused the Fire Department to respond to numerous carbon monoxide and smoke dectector alarms this week.
Fire officials said that in most cases, the alarms were caused by batteries in the alarms being drained of power.
Selectman Thomas Kehoe said he doesn't know the cause of the outages but said that Town Hall has been receiving a significant number of phone calls about the outages. He said some of the outages are scheduled while others have caught residents off guard for various amounts of times.
"They are more wide-spread than we would like," he said, mentioning that as it starts to get cold outside, these outages could leave people without heat.
A line came down around 7 yesterday morning on Pleasant Street causing 1,000 National Grid customers to be without power for an hour and a half, a National Grid representative said. A squirrel caused the outage by coming in contact with the equipment on a utility pole. A National Grid crew repaired the equipment and restored power by 9:30 a.m.
On Wednesday, 225 houses near Summer Street were out of power for 6 1/2 hours, from 7:30 p.m. until 2 a.m. At press time, National Grid could only say a crew was called in for "emergency repairs" and they don't know what caused the outage.
On Monday, A tree fell and knocked a line out on Loading Place Road causing about 24 customers to be without power for two hours.
Kehoe said a representative from National Grid is expected to be at the selectmen's meeting on Monday to explain the problems. National Grid said customers can call 1-800-322-3223 for information about an outage.
