NStar
David and India Shannon both report a blackout in Roslindale, along Centre Street, for about 45 minutes tonight. Anybody else lose power? The lights stayed on at the other end of the neighborhood, by the Hyde Park line.
Pizzeria Uno's Uno Chicago Bar and Grill that Used to Just Sell Pizza bankruptcy filing shows the West Roxbury-based chain of not-pizza places owes WFXT $64,000 and Katsiroubas Bros. $54,000. The filing, in New York bankruptcy court also shows the company owes NStar $112,000 and National Grid $95,000.
Although the Chapter 11 filing means the company remains open for business, it is closing outlets in some farflung locations such as Fairhaven and New Hampshire.
Uno's bankruptcy filing.
Faegirl reports the power was out in her part of East Boston between 5 and 7:30 p.m. tonight, "from Bennington St/145 up past our house towards Wood Island."
Copyright 2009 Faegirl. Posted with a universalhub tag on Flickr.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the conviction of a woman who argued she could not be charged with larceny for not paying utility bills because utility service is not "property" that can be stolen. Read more
Fabulously Out There chronicles NStar's successful effort to make one East Boston street far uglier by replacing a single utility pole with two utility poles bolted together.
She bets they'd never do that in Brookline or Cambridge. The program is, however, working just fine in Roslindale as utilities continue to file endless reams of paperwork on how slowly they are replacing their backlogs of such double poles.
AnnaB signed up for NStar's green-energy program, but now she wishes the company would stop wasting so much paper and resources congratulating her on her choice:
... This weekend I got a flag and letter thanking me for going green. Gee, I wonder how many thank you for going green mailings they sent out? Think about it ...
Marcy attempts to get an actual human on the line at Nstar when her power goes out but is instead confronted by a lady robot who asks her to explain her issue and when Marcy replies "customer service representative," asks:
Are you sure? Our representatives might be busy.
Brad Kayal lives on Sutherland Road in Brighton, which, you may recall, is where several thousand gallons of mineral oil leaked out of an Nstar electrical conduit this past Thursday and wound up in the Muddy River on the other side of Brookline.
Kayal took the photos here to show what the street has been like since that incident. He writes:
Have you ever thought to yourself, "I wonder what it's like to live in a strip mine?"
If so, I welcome anyone to swap apartments with me because since that pipe/conduit/whatever broke and leaked all that oil over a week ago Sutherland Rd. in Brighton has become one impressive construction operation. They've dug 15' holes up and down the block, erected wood shacks (that they're pumping nitrogen into), rented themselves some tents, got some cranes, dumpsters, port-a-johns, and they have been working non-stop , around the clock, since last Thursday.
NStar worker injured, but expected to survive the flash fire under Freeport Street.
Flaming manhole this morning.The Crimson reports on flaming manholes early this morning:
A fire started underground on the corner of Mass Ave and Dunster Street was visible through several manholes in the Square this morning. Harvard's Holyoke Center, Cambridge Savings Bank, Au Bon Pain, and other nearby institutions were evacuated, and automobile access to the Square had been severely restricted by the Cambridge Fire Department. ...
NeutralSurface took photos, including the one on the right.
Channel 5 reports. NECN has video on "the underground mechanical failure" as well (great fire-AND-ice NECN screen capture).
Sushiesque was on the scene later in the morning taking photos of the aftermath:
Mishka gets the day off.
Michael: On second thought, maybe I'll go to Yale.
Crispyfoods captures Old Flameful outside the Pit:
Channel 4 reports two NStar workers were injured this morning when the manhole they were in erupted in flames. Otis and Summer streets; cable failure blamed.
The Outraged Liberal is so enjoying recent NStar "service upgrades" in his neighborhood:
... Ever since the program started (or at least since we learned about it in February) I've been running around the house resetting the clocks on a regular basis (and you know how much fun that is!) We've had more power failures in the last two two weeks than in the previous five years. ...
Another dog gets shocked, in South Boston, but lives.
Not again!
Then again, it has been awhile since manholes last exploded in the North End. Also, despite the cool headline, nobody died from the geysers of flame, although, as you might expect, people were none too happy.
Channel 5 has some video.
The Pulitzer for Best Explanatory Paragraph goes to the Globe for really bringing the story home - especially for all its readers in Kansas:
The neighborhood, which is popular with tourists looking for an Italian meal, is also home to a number of college students.
MyDedham chronicles the lazy utility-company practice of leaving stumpy, dangerous-looking old telephone poles rather than replace them when they put in new ones and finds an example of triple poling.
Earlier:
Optimistic homeowner thinks Verizon will transfer wires to new pole.
Mike Ball harrumphs over the endless procession of workers from NStar, Keyspan and the Boston Water and Sewer Commission who are forever ripping up his street:
... This week, after two and one-half days, one well into the night, the gang of utility thugs left. They managed to knock Italian-bread sized chunks from our maple. They threw Dunkin' cups and lids, sandwich remains, junk food wrappers, pipe straps, work gloves and more on the street and in our recycling bin, including oddly enough, a single lime wedge. We assume that was from some cloying donut shop drink, although it has been gin-and-tonic weather. ...
And then there's the natural-gas smell.
NSTAR just notified all customers who had signed up for the E-Bill service to be able to pay bills online, but who did not opt to stop receiving paper statements, that they were going to no longer receive paper statements whether they like it or not.
Read all about it on my main blog.
Michael gets an explanation from NSTAR on why his power went out Monday: A transformer blew under extreme loads:
Let me say from the outset that I could very well have my facts wrong, but from what I understand, NSTAR hasn't done the upgrade they've really needed to do on our transmission lines over the past few years. Basically, it's a large capital expenditure to upgrade everything, so instead of fixing it all at once they've simply patched it as problems arose. Needless to say, this results in a system that in the long run, costs more money to fix. ...
Samara reports on a blackout on her street last night:
... What we thought was a transformer (which would have been a much much louder bang), turned out to be an extremely loose wire connected to the transformer. Nice to know they're keeping up maintenance. That wire fell off **LIVE** from the pole right next to the house across the street. Good times. All kinds of flashing and fun stuff. Luckily, we live 1/2 block away from the fire station and there is a cop always around at the Star Market around the corner. ...
NSTAR sure knows how to pick the right night to suddenly tell people it's cutting power to some 2,000 homes:
A few minutes ago we received a phone call from City Councilor Denise Simmons. NSTAR informed her that tonight they would shut down power to Area 4, affecting 2000 households with no warning. They claim that 'it's gonna go out anyway' and that they need to make undefined 'repairs'.
If you think this might be a bit on the unacceptable side, there's a community meeting on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Area 4 Youth Center at Harvard and Essex.
Reports are filtering in of scattered blackouts across the region last night:
When the power went out last night at the James's Gate pub in Jamaica Plain, they didn't shut down - they broke out the candles. And Abby was there with her camera.
The power also went out in Borderline's corner of Newton, but he was not amused, especially since the border of the blackout zone was apparently a line right down his street - people across the way had lights and AC. Still he manages to find solace in the fact that he still has a dial-up account with which to post his travails:
So nyah nyah nyah wireless power users with your useless newfangled access points! They don't work in these parts!
In Brookline, Michael sweated through a blackout:
... The air conditioner had been running in the bedroom, so it remained cool in there for about an hour afterwards. But once the heat filtered into the bedroom, there was no escape. I grew up with air conditioning, and I have little tolerance for heat. We read for a while, but no matter how I positioned myself, I simply could not get comfortable. I kept wishing for a large, battery-powered fan.
Somehow I managed to get to sleep, but then at about midnight the phone rang. Nomi picked it up. It was a recording from NSTAR, telling us that the power would be restored by 2:30 AM. Never mind the fact that I had pushed the buttons on the voice mail limiting such calls to hours we'd actually be awake...
On Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker, Abby describes her first taste of random Jamaica Plain power outages:
... So the power went out last night from 5-7pm, then again at around midnight for 3 more hours. ...
What Nstar says it's doing about it.
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