WALTHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Waltham residents came together Tuesday night to discuss their frustrations with Eversource with city leaders after a power surge caused smoke and fire problems across the community.
“I just don’t know what happened,” said Raimondo Alonge, whose home caught fire on Monday after the surge. Alonge was among the dozens of Waltham residents who shared their experiences from the surge, which included losing appliances, electrical damage, and other issues.
But the bigger message was the lack of communication, with residents saying they want answers about what happened.
Along said Eversource gave him and his tenants $100 gift cards but he’s looking for more support from the utility company.
“That’s not going to recuperate all the memories, my mother’s things and my things and my wife’s things… it’s priceless that stuff… and I don’t feel safe now,” he said.
Eversource shared a statement with 7NEWS on Wednesday.
“We met with city officials today to explain our findings and the immediate steps we took to ensure the system is operating safely and reliably for our customers,” the company said. “We have identified an equipment issue at one of our substations as the cause of last week’s power surge and we have since taken this particular component out of service and completed a comprehensive examination and test of all other equipment at the substation, which is operating as designed.”
Eversource said its engineers “are implementing a redesign of the local system while we work to bring in new replacement equipment to help prevent a similar issue from happening again in the future.”
“We continue to work with any customers who need to file a claim for property damage and have scheduled two in-person sessions on June 29th and July 13th from 4-7pm at the Waltham Government Center to assist in the claims process,” Eversource said. “Customer can also find the claims form on our website. Once the review is complete, we’ll contact each customer individually with the status of their claim.”
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