(NECN: Justin Michaels, Duxbury, Mass.) - Thousands woke up without power and heat in New England on Tuesday morning - three days after the historic blizzard slammed the area.
Utility crews continue to make progress.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 43,000 people remained without power in New England.
Many of those people live on the South Shore in Massachusetts.
Duxbury, Massachusetts business owners like convenience store proprietor Das Patel are taking big hit in the wake of the Blizzard of 2013.
"No power now come," he said in reaction to people driving by his store thinking it's closed. But with no power, even his "Open" sign is useless.
However there is some good news from NStar's president, Craig Hallstrom. They hope to have all power restored in the Bay State by Thursday, "the heaviest hit towns like Marshfield and Plymouth will go into Thursday night," Hallstrom said.
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At last check 32 percent of Duxbury and 28 percent of Marshfield are still without power, and those are frustrating numbers to many, including the congressman from this part of Massachusetts, William Keating who himself is without power.
Keating said, "they have to do a better job of communicating, NStar, in my opinion, of communicating to the public."
But the everyday customers at Das Patel's convenience store are a bit more understanding.
Duxbury resident Phil Markella said, "What can I say? The whole town's been out of power and they can only do so much so fast. It's an old, we have an old system here and it just takes a long time to get put back up on line."
But whether communication is up to standards or not, the NStar's CEO says people are working double and triple time to meet that Thursday "lights on" deadline.
"I've got over 15 hundred linemen, almost a thousand tree workers to help us untangle the wires from the heavy pines from the south shore all the way out to cape cod," said CEO Tom May.
Governor Deval Patrick has been surveying the damage and the outages as he tours the affected areas... And he too places all emphasis on the power companies to get power restored, the sooner the better.
Patrick said, "I think the utility companies have made great progress but they need to keep making great progress."
In just ice cream alone, Patel has lost $2,000.
