SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Those who live off of Highland Avenue in Somerville say the neighborhood is experiencing power problems and though it’s been an issue since April, the last few days have been extra unbearable.
“So hot, like, incredibly hot! I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days,” Miriam Ross-Hirsch told Boston 25 news.
“It’s just been pretty frustrating. On Monday night, we got maybe a one minute warning or as our power was going out, that our power was going out and its as the heat was rising and as we are getting the warnings for the heatwave. Somerville has also declared some type of emergency!” she explained.
Ross-Hirsch says the power was out all night on Monday night, then Tuesday night. On Wednesday, she says the power came back on around 8 in the morning, but then they got a notification saying it would be turned off again in an hour.
“We don’t have central air. We have window units and we need to keep those running and they are struggling to keep up with the power outage earlier.”
At this point, she is growing more and more concerned for her elderly neighbors and anyone with pets as she is also a pet owner.
“You can’t leave them in the heat. There are people who might be sick or old and it’s just really concerning. I understand maintenance has to happen, but we’ve had five outages since April, and I’m just wondering if there’s anything else we can do to not leave people without air-conditioning in a heat wave. They are definitely doing something, right, it’s not like they are just shutting the power off...it’s just the timing with this heat,” she explained.
A spokesperson for Eversource tells Boston 25 that crews try their best to avoid disrupting service in these conditions, but engineers deemed this work critical.
“All they are saying is maintenance. They didn’t say anything besides maintenance and that’s also what is pretty frustrating. You’re going to leave us without ac without anything during a heat wave and just say maintenance?” Ross-Hirsch said in response to receiving those notifications.
She and her neighbors are desperately asking for relief with temperatures rising higher and higher.
“Just please don’t cut the power anymore. I don’t know what else to say besides that. We can handle this if we just have power.”
Eversource says the good news is that this critical work has been completed but these extreme temperatures do put pressure on the electric system, and that could prompt additional outages.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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