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Crews Tackle Outages, Power Still Out For 175,000 In Mass.

BOSTON (CBS/AP) -- Utility crews continued to work around the clock in Massachusetts. As of Tuesday afternoon, 200,000 electric customers and another 30,000 New Hampshire customers were still without power in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene.

MASSACHUSETTS

National Grid reports Tuesday that more than 126,534 of its customers are still without power as of 10:30 p.m.

Related: Outages force schools to push back classes

In Foxboro, town officials are furious that National Grid powered up Patriot Place and Gillette Stadium before the rest of the town.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Bernice Corpuz reports

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WBZ-TV's Ken MacLeod reports

NStar cut the number of its customers without power overnight by about half and is reporting 53,000 outages Tuesday as of 10:30 p.m. The South Shore and Cape Cod are the hardest hit areas.

"If you are without power now, this is a multi-day event," said NStar spokesman Mike Durand.

Durand said the power companies are working as fast as they can and concentrating on fixing the areas where they can can get the most people up and running at once.

"The way that we handle our repair work is to make sure that we're working on the areas that will give folks the most benefit. So, the work that we can do that restores power to the most customers, that's what we do first, and then we work our way from there," said Durand.

Photos: Tropical Storm Irene

Western Massachusetts Electric Co. is reporting just scattered outages.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Thousands of New Hampshire electric customers are without power two days after Tropical Storm Irene struck the state.

Public Service of New Hampshire reported 16,779 outages as of 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. National Grid and Unitil have minimal outages.

Officials in both states warned that it could take several days to get power back on for everyone.

(TM and © Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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