It is important to remember that there has never been a rolling blackout in New England. By now, everyone should be prepared for periods of power reduction and even outages this cooling season. The survival kit you assembled to get you and your family through winter storms, hurricanes and tornadoes can also get you through power shortages. You prepared your supplies for when the power goes out.
Preparation is the key to survival, yet there are many things that can be done to help recovery.
However the power shortage is caused, by power plant problems or storm damage, there are several steps you should take to reduce the chance of further damaging lines or delaying restoration. On an average day, you use many appliances that require many watts of power to run. When the electricity to your house shuts off, the air conditioner, lights, and television are still switched on and will cause a surge of power when the utilities try to turn the system back on. In an outage, power company representatives recommend turning off all appliances and lights, leaving only one light on to see when electricity is restored. Refrigerators should be unplugged and kept shut to preserve the cold inside.