AP

Utility workers from National Grid and from South Carolina discussed power restoration plans while meeting at the Hanover Mall last Sunday. (AP)

By Erin Ailworth Globe Staff

Utilities’ handling of the hundreds of thousands of outages caused by the winter storm that battered Southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod last weekend was largely improved compared with other recent storms that caused widespread power losses and provoked denunciation from government officials and irate customers, according to many state and local officials.

Together, NStar and
National Grid mustered more than 3,000 crews to replace fallen utility poles, rehang wire cables, and repair blown transformers that left more than 600,000 customers without power because of the storm, which dumped more than 2 feet of snow in some parts of the state.

As their crews worked, the utilities broadcast their progress, often via photos and messages posted on social media sites or sent by text to a phone. By the end of Tuesday, National Grid had returned power to all but about 35 of the the 251,000 customers that lost power. NStar had the lights back by Wednesday for nearly all of its 350,000 customers left in the dark by the storm.

The blackout may have seemed interminable in those households, but utilities apparently restored electricity as fast or faster than they promised in emergency response plans filed with the state, plans based largely on standards set by the US Department of Homeland Security. While there was criticism — mostly from those who wanted quicker and more frequent updates on repairs — the preliminary consensus is that the utilities seemed to have learned from shortcomings in past storms.