(Bloomberg) -- Residents in the towns of North Andover, Andover and Lawrence are being allowed to return home after proprieties were safely cleared of gas, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said in a Twitter post Sunday morning, three days several explosions triggered evacuations.
Teams accessed the nearly 8,600 meters that were impacted by the gas incident, turned them off, and safely cleared the home for any gas detection. As of 6:30AM, all impacted home have been safely cleared of gas. https://t.co/eJZGaGZjef
About 15,000 residents had their power restored as of 6:30 a.m. local time, the governor said in a separate tweet. Eversource Energy, in charge of the recovery operation, expects work to be completed by mid-day.
As of 6:30 am all residences/buildings in the affected area were confirmed to be clear of natural gas. We're actively working with National Grid to restore power, and anticipate having that completed by mid-day.
“Eversource has worked hard to coordinate this operation with Columbia Gas and National Grid, and National Grid has been a strong partner in coordinating the return of electricity,” Baker tweeted. Recovery efforts will now be focused on assessing the damage to the low-pressure gas system, and inspection of gas equipment at proprieties.
The Massachusetts governor declared a state of emergency on Thursday after explosions along a natural gas distribution system killed one person and injured more than 25 others.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katerina Petroff in Frankfurt at kpetroff@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Kingdon at ckingdon@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann
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