Update: National Grid Considers Texting as a way to Communicate with City Officials

National Grid President Marcy Reed told a group of local and state officials that the power company is considering a program, which would provide alerts to town officials via text message during emergencies.

Reed met with local and state officials at Friday afternoon during a meeting coordinated and led by Senator Richard Ross (R-Wrentham) to address the company's plan of action in dealing with according to a release. 

Reed told the group of officials including Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas that communications presented the biggest frustration for the company after the storm and that National Grid want to know what kinds of information would be most beneficial to municipalities in what way it should be relayed.

Sen. Ross, who had requested that the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy in conjunction with the Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight perform and NSTAR following Irene, led the meeting.

Local officials from Attleboro, Franklin, Plainville, Wrentham and Rehoboth had a chance to air out their concerns and provide possible solutions for future emergencies.

National Grid's during and after the storm was a primary concern of Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas who said the power company's poor communication left him, emergency officials and residents in the dark. At the height of the storm 98 percent of Attleboro was without power and Irene's impact left more for several days.

Dumas stressed that Attleboro had resources available to aid in emergency response, but they were never utilized by National Grid. He also noted that because local officials were not provided more direct access to the company and records were not being kept up to date, the city was unable to provide accurate information to the residents.

“There was such a breakdown in communication during this storm, and I want to ensure that these issues are resolved before we are faced with another, more severe emergency," Ross said in a release. It is imperative that both National Grid and the municipalities do all that we can to make our communities as safe as possible.”

"We were really there to listen to the communities, the municipal officials to gather their concerns about the restoration from Irene where they felt the company could have done a better job," said David Greaves of National Grid. "We were there to explain to them our restoration process and where we feel we could have done a better job. This post storm assessment is something we do after every storm whether it is internally or outside agencies as well. We were happy to participate in that meeting. We thought it was productive."

Michael Costello, Chair of the Rehoboth Board of Selectmen suggested allocating one truck to each community during a storm determined to be a multi-day event. Dumas supported Costello's suggestion.

Also present at the meeting were representatives from several local Massachusetts and US legislators, including Sen. Karen Spilka, Sen. James Timilty, Rep. James Vallee, Rep. George Ross, Rep. Dan Winslow, Sen. Scott Brown and Cong. Jim McGovern. National Grid also provided delegates from their various departments, such as Forestry, Community and Customer Management, Emergency Planning, Maintenance and Construction and Government Affairs.

 “It is my hope that this proves to be the first of many meetings generating a functional plan of communication between the power companies and the municipalities,” Ross said. “As we move closer to winter, it is important that we tackle these issues now and ensure that the failure we dealt with in September is not repeated.”