About 17,000 Mass. customers still without power

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - About 17,000 Massachusetts electric customers are without power days after superstorm Sandy struck the state.

A National Grid spokeswoman said Thursday morning that about 9,000 of the utility's customers were still in the dark, down from a peak of 237,000 at the height of the storm Monday night.

Spokeswoman Jackie Barry says National Grid "is ahead of where we expected to be" and hopes to have everyone back online by midnight Thursday.

Once the company's New England customers are back, the utility will send crews to help restoration efforts in other areas hammered by Sandy.

NStar was reporting 8,000 customers still without electricity Thursday morning.

Western Massachusetts Electric Co. was reporting just a few dozen outages and Unitil was reporting full restoration. Click here for complete Sandy coverage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cox Media Group