ROWE — Town officials across western Franklin County are calling for a Department of Public Utilities investigation into National Grid after nearly 1,500 households were left without power for nearly four days in February.

Emergency management directors say the power company was uncommunicative and gave residents false information about when electricity would be restored. This led to residents delaying leaving their homes to go to warming centers or otherwise seek help, as they believed power would be back within hours. But each time the estimated hour of restoration approached, the deadline was delayed again.

“Their response was absolutely horrible,” said Dennis Annear, chief of the Rowe and Charlemont Fire departments, during a power outage recap meeting that brought together town department heads and the Rowe Selectboard last week. “Hopefully there will be a request to the Department of Public Utilities to conduct an investigation into National Grid’s response to this event. Only after spending hours on the phone with lots of people were we able to get Grid to answer anything. Grid is an international company and the only people that they answer to in the commonwealth of Massachusetts is the Department of Public Utilities.”

High winds knocked out power lines and poles, leading residents to lose electricity at approximately 10 p.m. on Feb. 16. Power was restored on Feb. 19 at around 9:40 p.m. During the multi-day outage, warming centers were established across the region, the American Red Cross disaster relief unit brought food and warm drinks to the Charlemont Federated Church, and the towns of Hawley and Heath each declared a state of emergency.

Annear said a DPU investigation can only be requested by a state senator or representative. He said he is in favor of an investigation because a lack of communication as to when power would be restored led to people staying in cold homes instead of going to the available warming centers or the homes of friends and family members who live elsewhere and had power.

“It was absolutely horrible. The misleading of people will show up in that report because we had people that said the same thing. They said, ‘I’m not gonna go to a shelter cause they said power was gonna come back on in six hours and I can stay in my house another six hours,’” Annear said.

Heath Fire Chief Nick Anzuoni shared similar sentiments with the Heath Selectboard earlier this month.

“I think part of the problem with this storm was false expectations that really messed up people’s Plan B. People might have had a Plan B to say, ‘I’m not going to stay here, I don’t have a generator.’ But they didn’t leave because [National Grid] said three hours,” Anzuoni said. “A lot of questions were not answered the way they should have been.”

Anzuoni said he understood National Grad was dealing with major damage and that high winds prevented line crews from safely getting in the bucket trucks and making repairs, but he feels National Grid should have done a better job of communicating these challenges and what the towns should expect.

“We know they had 20, 30 major poles down. That is not an easy fix, that’s fine, I understand that. We want people to be safe and I have no qualms with the line crews,” Anzuoni said, “but it was poorly managed.”

He added that in years past, the protocol for power outages was “cut and clear.” If there was a storm that knocked down lines, the company would cut power to the area, allowing tree crews to clear fallen trees or branches and reopen the roads. Then the line crews could come in and fix the pole equipment. With this storm, he said communication was poor. Tree crews would wait in one area, unable to work until they were sure power was off and they could safely enter the area.

“I ran into a tree crew on State Farm Road and they had been sitting there for five hours waiting for a guy from the power company to certify the lines were dead,” Anzuoni said.

Annear noted that National Grid seemed to prioritize power restoration over opening roads, but the town needs to open the roads so emergency personnel can quickly reach all areas of the town.

“Our priority is opening the roads. We need to do wellness checks, we need to get supplies and we need to get people to wellness centers,” he said. “We need to get to our people. I could care less about restoration. If we had a fire here that day, we’d have a problem getting people there.”

National Grid Corporate Affairs Manager Bob Kievra, when asked for comment in response to the complaints from the region’s officials, said that more than 30 utility poles were knocked down amid the high winds, and restoration work was further complicated by “significant damage to a distribution circuit coming out of National Grid’s Bear Swamp substation.” He noted 40 crews worked around the clock to clear a 4-mile stretch of road that blocked access to the substation.

Regarding estimated times of restoration, Kievra said there are many factors impacting how long it takes to restore power, including the extent of damage and working conditions for crews. He said estimated restoration times are frequently updated on National Grid’s website as information regarding the extent of damage and what will need to be fixed becomes available.

“Work volume, the cause of the outage and the extent of the damage can all affect our time estimates for restoration. Storms can cause extensive damage to our entire distribution system. High-voltage transmission lines are given priority because they supply electricity to the entire system. Next, we focus on substations and local distribution lines that serve multiple locations. From there, individual power service can be restored,” Kierva said. “We continuously update and refine [our estimated restoration times] for all impacted areas and do so throughout the duration of the event.”

Annear noted that coordination between police, fire and highway department personnel and community volunteers went well, but Rowe should look at updating its emergency management plans. During the power outage recap meeting, other town officials agreed to create a brochure to send to residents, outlining town policies for establishing shelters and what to do during a power outage.

Heath officials also plan to review the town’s emergency plans. Anzuoni said that even though not many people went to the warming center, they could have used a few more hands to manage the facility.

Moving forward, state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield, said she asked the impacted towns to submit after-action reports and she plans to review with other state officials what they can do to ensure clear communication and a timely response to future storm-related outages.

“We can’t just let this go. I was extremely concerned about the safety of our residents,” said Blais, who spent time at the National Grid Mobile Command Center that was set up in Berkshire East Mountain Resort’s parking lot during the extended outage. “At minimum, National Grid should accurately share what time power will be restored. That is not what happened with this storm.”

Blais said she was able to get National Grid to update its information to more accurately inform people how long power would be out, but she feels the company should have been upfront from the beginning. She also praised the municipal responses, which included door-to-door wellness checks. At one point, as she was pulled over on the side of the road in Rowe because she had found a spot with cell service, a member of the wellness check crews stopped to see if she needed any assistance.

“Our community stepped up to check in on their neighbors to make sure they were safe during a cold winter storm,” Blais said.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.