Today, Chelmsford braces for the second big Halloween week storm in as many years, and the question remains whether National Grid will be able to restore power quickly once Hurricane Sandy's impact leaves the area.

State officials will be keeping a close eye on National Grid's performance in the storm, and National Grid New England vice president of operations Kathy Lyford announced in a press release that customers should prepare for extended power outages, but predictions on how long possible electricity restoration might take won't be known until once the storm is over.

National Grid has a map of outages in the area online, and we will be throughout the area on Monday checking on power outage locations, providing updates on our Facebook page, Twitter feed, and our main Hurricane Sandy Info Article.