While crowds swarmed Boston’s smoke-filled streets on March 13 after a Back Bay fire caused a 15-block blackout, Holly Berry struggled to leave her building.
“I have a wheelchair that I typically use and in the building I live at, the elevator – even with the generators – didn’t work,” Berry said.
Berry said she could not get out right away and had to take her crutches to exit the building.
She attempted to reach family and friends using her government-issued SafeLink Wireless phone, but was unable to place a call because she had no signal, she said.
“That was a concern to me – that my emergency phone, which is my one link out, didn’t work,” Berry said.
Berry was just one of about a dozen people affected by the blackout who told their stories at the three-day-long information center set up by NStar at the Boston Public Library.
Emily Holden, a Beacon Street resident who lives about a mile from where the transformer that caused the blackout is located, said she is trying to restock her refrigerator.
“I didn’t know if that was temporary power or what was going on,” Holden said. “I’m hesitant to restock my refrigerator if I’m still on generators, so I wanted to ask how long I would be on a generator, if that was a generator, if they think it’s safe for me to restock and not have to worry about everything spoiling again.”
About 21,000 NStar customers lost power after the Back Bay fire on March 13, according to the NStar website.
NStar said customers might experience occasional outages and the company used portable generators as a “temporary fix,” according to their website.
Holden, who had lost about $150 worth of food and $50 worth of gourmet cupcakes during the blackout, said the NStar official told her she was on a generator and probably would be for a while, but that it was safe to restock her refrigerator.
Alex Prizand, of Thornton’s Restaurant & Café on Huntington Avenue, estimates his losses at roughly between $4,400 and $5,000 for spoiled food and lost business.
Prizand said he came to the information center to verify that NStar was not taking claims.
“I have to go after my own insurance and my own insurance is another problem because the actual accident happened off premises, but it affected the premises so it’s a completely different story,” he said. “They may not pay at all.”
Despite NStar’s refusal to take his claim, Prizand said he is coping with the situation, though it is just going to take some nerves.
“Everything’s going to be paid,” he said. “I’m sure because I’m not the only one.”
He said for many business owners, the problem has shifted from an issue of losses to an issue of principle.
Ryan Fox, who lives off of St. Botolph Street, said he was just frustrated with NStar and its lack of accurate communications.
“Throughout the outage, they consistently reported knowingly inaccurate times,” Fox said. “The supervisors told me that they were releasing knowingly inaccurate times because customers preferred that rather than having the actual answer.”
Fox, who said he was without power and hot water for 54 hours and lost $200 in groceries, said he received multiple estimates for the time at which the power would turn back on.
“I got probably 10 or 12 different time estimates and all of them were wrong,” he said, “and when I asked about it they said that was the time they were told to provide and that they knew it wasn’t going to happen.”
NStar could not be reached for comment.
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