Blizzard Leaves Tens of Thousands Without Power in New England

More than 30,000 homes and businesses across New England are without power as a blizzard batters the region.

National Grid reported Tuesday afternoon that 13,000 customers were without power in Massachusetts, with Nantucket the hardest hit.

NStar is reporting more than 18,000 customers in the dark, with Sandwich and Duxbury the hardest hit communities.

Both utilities have more than 1 million customers.

Many of those affected area in coastal areas where there are high wind gusts.

Utilities in neighboring states reported outages for hundreds. In New Hampshire, two companies said a combined 316 were without power. Rhode Island authorities put their estimate around 1,000. Roughly 2,000 outages were reported in Maine and just 15 in Connecticut. There were no outages in Vermont. 

Farther south, the storm appeared to have a minimal impact for the 2.2 million electric customers PSE&G serves in New Jersey. As of 3:30 am, fewer than 50 customers were without service. 

The National Weather Service says parts of Massachusetts could get up to 2 feet of snow.

Forecasters originally said the crippling storm could bring 1 to 3 feet of snow and punishing hurricane-force winds. But early Tuesday, they downgraded most of those numbers, saying New England would fare the worst, but even then not as bad as expected. Seven states from Pennsylvania to Maine have declared a state of emergency.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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