Our crews work around the clock in difficult conditions to restore power as quickly as possible when winter storms cause outages. We hope these tips help you better manage while we’re getting your lights back on.
First: If someone in your household relies on electric life support equipment, we strongly recommend emergency back-up power. This might be a battery-operated system, an uninterruptable power supply, or a generator.
Avoid candles, or anything else with an open flame. Stock up on canned or dried food (and a manual can opener), and store fresh water if you have an electric pump. Keep a corded telephone or cell phone handy—cordless phones will not work without power.
If you lose power, be sure it’s not due to a blown fuse or tripped circuit breakers in your home by checking to see if your neighbors have power. If not, call us at 781.348.BELD (2353) to report the outage.
Make sure all electric devices your household relies on are fully charged if the forecast turns nasty. Don’t wait until roads are impassable to discover that you can’t find your cords—especially a car charger. That may come in handy during extended outages as you can charge your devices from your vehicle if necessary. Have a flashlight, a battery operated radio, a wind-up clock and fresh batteries. Although a smartphone may have these features, it can take a lot of juice to run multiple apps … and did you remember to charge it?
Finally, turn off electric appliances that were on before the outage and turn on automatically. Unplug sensitive appliances such as TVs, computers and microwaves. Temporary power surges can damage microprocessors inside them, so we recommend using plug-in surge protectors.