National Grid is asking customers to be on alert for a scam stating utility bills will be paid by the Federal government or President Obama after sending a social security number and bank routing information.

The scam has impacted utility customers 

Many Andover residents may have to wait until Thursday night for their power to be back on, but others may see it sooner.

Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts, said that the restoration process from now on will be gradual because now the process will involve clearing trees and repairing wires street-by-street.

“As of 1 p.m., power was restored to 102,000 customers, so this means we now have about 319,000 customers without power,” Reed said. “It is our goal that we will have 200,000 [without power] by late tonight.”

National Grid currently has more than 1,200 workers restoring power across the state. The company has called in crews from as far away as Texas, Virginia and Canada to help. Once those crews arrive, there will likely be more than 1,800 workers on the job.

“However, even with all the resources, it takes time to repair the damage caused by this storm,” Reed said.

Reed pointed out that the major difference between this storm and the aftermath of Hurricane Irene — in which hundreds of thousands lost power in New England — is that after Irene, the bulk of outages were caused by transmission damage. That was easier to fix and made it possible to restore power to large numbers of customers at once. In this outage, the process has involved a variety of solutions. And although the company has been able to restore power to so many so far, the process from now on will be longer.

“The next large batches are mostly in the distribution restoration,” Reed said, meaning clearing trees and fixing individual lines. “That takes longer, because it’s street-by-street.”

Andover currently has about 10,000 homes without power after the weekend’s massive storm. Outages range throughout all corners of the town including Ballardvale, West Andover, South Andover, Shawsheen Village and the downtown area.

“We know this is a difficult time, and we want to reassure them that we are working to get power restored as quickly and safely as possible,” Reed said.

For those without power or heat,

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With roughly 75 percent of the town without power, it is a fortunate fact that Andover’s 

Some Andover residents may be without electricity until Thursday night, National Grid estimates.

Roughly 10,000 homes in Andover are still without power after the weekend’s massive storm. Large areas throughout Andover are without power, as about three-quarters of the town does not have power. 

The company’s latest estimates put restoration time at Thursday at 11:45 p.m.

A spokesperson for the company said that the estimate reflects when the last homes will likely have power and that many will likely have power back before then.

In the meantime, the company is asking residents to practice extreme caution with downed power lines in the area. Here are some safety tips from National Grid.

Check back with Patch for further updates.

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