Power Outages Plague Stoneham; Some residents lost service three times in one week
Published on October 25th, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - Angry citizens want an explanation for a series of power outages over the past week: contractors and squirrels are to blame, Boston Edison spokespeople said.
One Gorham Avenue father says his young son screams in fear every time the power goes out.
Don Hutcheson of Hancock Street is on oxygen; when his power goes out, his fear is very real.
According to Walter Salvi of Boston Edison, on Thursday, Oct. 19, a contractor working for the state was installing a guard rail on Montvale Avenue. The contractor accidentally cut an underground conduit carrying power lines. This caused the first outage.
Then Boston Edison rerouted the power lines through another circuit. But the circuit could not withstand the increased load, and it broke down Thursday night, bringing on outage number two. The same people who lost power in the morning were again in the dark, and they were joined by the people served by the blown second circuit.
By Thursday evening Boston Edison workers had repaired the blown circuit and begun work on repairing the damaged conduit on Montvale. The power was back.
According to Edison community representative Bill Zamparelli, work on the conduit was ongoing Monday morning, Oct. 23, when an errant squirrel got into the wrong wires on Wright Street, frying himself and taking power down for a third time, at around 10:26 a.m. Power was restored by 11:58 a.m.
The utility pole damaged Monday morning in the Medford Police chase (see front page story) also caused problems.
In all 3,570 customers — and one squirrel — were troubled by the outages.
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