After having planned to shut off power to around 400 customers on Buffalo’s West Side Thursday, National Grid last Wednesday postponed that outage a day. The outage will affect portions of Porter, Jersey, Pennsylvania, Niagara Prospect, Fargo, West and Plymouth streets from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday while the utility works with D’Youville College to update their systems.
National Grid spokesperson Virginia Limmiatis said after initially predicting more than 900 customers would be affected, that number has since been reduced. She said the inconvenience has to do with time demands.
“The reason why we’re having to do it tomorrow is because we’re working with D’Youville College, we are connecting our electricity system in their new building so that’s why it has to be performed during the day and before the start of school,” Limmiatis said. “So it’s certainly to work with D’Youville College and their needs to have connectivity before the start of school.”
The inconvenience has upset some residents and business owners that will be inconvenienced. Darlene Schmitt works at Mack Rentals at Porter and West Avenue, an area the outage will reach. She says she doesn’t mind the inconvenience.
“I would rather know in advance, they could have given us a little more advance notice but otherwise it is what it is and it has to be done,” Schmitt said. "It’s Buffalo and they’ve got new projects going up, new buildings going up and you need the equipment running correctly.”
With temperatures expected to reach the low 80s on Friday, Limmiatis said the utility has been working with local officials to set up relief centers for those customers who will be without power. Both the West Side Community Center at 161 Vermont St. and the Belle Center at 104 Maryland St. are scheduled to be open for relief to customers who are affected.