Power restored to Boston's Back Bay Friday

BOSTON (WHDH) -- NSTAR said it restored power to all its remaining customers throughout Boston’s Back Bay early Friday, after a transformer fire caused widespread outages on Tuesday. But a scheduled outage at 3 a.m. on Saturday will leave 8,000 without power, which will last up to three hours "barring any unforeseen circumstances.

The areas that will be affected by the scheduled outage are Beacon Street to Boylston Street, and Kenmore Square to Copley Square. The reason for the scheduled outage is so crews can work to replace the temporary power source and give residents and businesses permanent power.

It took longer than NSTAR initially thought to get its 21,000 customers back online after the fire. The lights came on floor-by-floor in the Prudential Center after 11 p.m. NSTAR said power was finally fully restored to customers by about 2 a.m. Friday.

Thousands of customers in Back Bay and surrounding areas were without power when a transformer at the Scotia Street substation blew on Tuesday. NSTAR told 7NEWS on Friday that the cause of the outage was a catastrophic failure of a connector cable at the main transformer in the substation.

NSTAR said there were setbacks while trying to restore power to customers. The temporary generators connected with mile-long cables were used to help get customers back online proved to be challenging to install. Then on Thursday afternoon, three manholes exploded which knocked out power to 1,500 customers who had recently gotten it restored.

NSTAR said they will be working over the next few days to make repairs to the permanent system and remove the temporary one.

Early Friday morning, NSTAR announced that the outage was over, but that was news to those on Hemenway Street in East Fenway.

“I talked to my daughter this morning and she said, ‘You didn’t answer your phone.’ I said, ‘That’s because we still don’t have electricity.’ But she said, ‘They said everybody, it was all set.’ I said, ‘No, not all set,’”said Mary Ann Brogan.

They got their power back at 11 a.m. Friday, long after NSTAR said all customers’ power had been restored.

“Our power came on about 2:30 and went right back off,” said Rebecca Hunter.

Hunter and the 45 families living on Hemenway Street in East Fenway were frustrated that NSTAR said everyone is back online even though they were still in the dark.

“It’s super frustrating when you have children and you know, they need to go to school and they need heat and hot water,” said Hunter.

NSTAR said everyone is back online, but if any customers are without power it could be an individual breaker or a breaker in the building. That is something the customer switches back on or it may be something NSTAR has to come out and look at. If you are without power, call 1-800-592-2000.

The company added that they do not provide reimbursement for lost business due to power outages. They recommend customers contact their insurance carriers.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is asking NSTAR to reimburse the city the $85,000 for police overtime during the blackout. NSTAR says it is communicating with the mayor’s office.

"Under the regulations, if they're out 12 hours, they have some obligation to the restaurants and other folks who have a spoiled product," Mayor Menino said.

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