Power restored after mishap causes outages in towns north of Boston

By Amanda Cedrone, Globe Correspondent

Several towns in Massachusetts were without power for a few hours today due to a problem that arose while NStar crews were working on an electrical transmission line in Woburn, officials said.

Around 12:30 p.m., a pole the crews were moving came into contact with one of the wires, causing loss of power to 15,000 NStar customers and also customers of other utilities that get power from NStar, said Michael Durand, an NStar spokesman.

The power outage affected Woburn, Reading, and Wilmington, Durand said. He was unsure of other towns it may have affected, and how many households it affected outside NStar customers.

“Within less than an hour, we reduced the number to 3,000 and by 4 p.m. all customers had their power back,” he said.