State and Local Officials Hit the Streets to Turn on the Power [VIDEO]

Gretchen and Bill Robinson have been without power for six days. They have made calls to National Grid to report that a large oak tree on Wood Street had fallen and become entangled on electrical wires making the road impassable. 

The Robinsons, along with neighbor Robin Tremblay and his elderly mother Marjorie, were fed up after getting no response from National Grid, so they called the Attleboro Emergency Operations Center. 

Building Inspector Doug Semple, who was manning the phones with other volunteers, took Robinson's complaint about the power being out in the Bank Street Extension and Wood Street for six days. Robinson said it was Semple who worked with Mayor Kevin Dumas and Maryanne Jefferson, Chief of Staff to Sen. Richard Ross, to expedite the process. 

"We were concerned about the elderly people in our neighborhood," Gretchen Robinson said. "We tried connecting with engineers who were here earlier, but there is a complete disconnect.

"We called and called and called but nothing," Robinson added. 

Along with the food they had to throw away and the expense of purchasing additional food, the neighbors were blocked in the dead end road by a large oak tree. 

"These people called in (to report the outage to National Grid) on Sunday morning," Dumas said. "Here we are on a local level and I'm on the street marrying the line road crew with the forestry group. 

"The communication and coordination from the administrative level has completely failed," Dumas said. Because of the poor communication, emergency personnel have been creating list of homes still without power and providing them to National Grid. Although National Grid had Wood Street on its list, it had not yet sent a crew there, according to Dumas. "I had to hijack this forestry crew."

As of 1 a.m. Friday morning the total number of residents without power had dropped from just under 14,000 to 493.

Neighbors had to park their cars on Bank Street Extension and walk under and around the large oak tree to get in and out of their homes. The blocked road is dangerous for two reasons, according to Dumas. One, it forces residents to walk under downed tree that could land on top of a resident and two, the impassable road would make it impossible for an ambulance to get to residents. 

Robinson and the rest of her neighbors who had come outside of their homes to watch the crew cut limbs from the old Oak tree, were surprised, but thankful to get a visit from Mayor Dumas. 

"This is called leadership and it begins with a Capital "L"," she said.