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MIKE BRADLEY

Curt Kosirog of Cotton Tree Service works Tuesday on a line at the corner of Bridge Road and Hatfield Street in Northampton.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Crescent Street in Northampton on Tuesday.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Easthampton At-large City Coucilor Andrea Burns, standing, chats with Phillip Kessler after serving him hot food Tuesday at a community meal for storm refugees at the Easthampton Public Safety Complex. He attended with his wife, Alice, right, and Margaret Mohr. The Kesslers said they have a wood stove, but no power.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Robin Bialecki, executive director of the Easthampton Community Center, smiles after making three entrees for a public dinner held for Easthampton storm refugees Tuesday at the Easthampton Public Safety Complex. The food came from the center’s food pantry with bread and desserts donated by Big E’s.

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MIKE BRADLEY

A broken utility pole brought down several wires, blocking Round Hill Road in Northampton Tuesday.

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JERREY ROBERTS

Lissie Fein, center, helps her daughter, Phoebe King, 5, eat beside her husband, Peter King, and her son, Oliver King, 8, during a free hot meal for storm refugees Tuesday at the Easthampton Public Safety Complex.

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MIKE BRADLEY

Lou Purinton directs traffic while Curt Kosirog works on a broken tree branch at the corner of Bridge Road and Hatfield Street in Northampton Tuesday. Purinton and Kosirog work for Cotton Tree Service.

NORTHAMPTON - Utility crews made significant progress in a massive power restoration effort on Tuesday, but that was little comfort to the thousands of people in the region who spent another night in the dark.

As of Tuesday evening, power had been restored to all but about 25,700 customers in Hampshire County, according to National Grid and Western Massachusetts Electric Co. The figures do not include South Hadley, which has its own power company.

President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration Tuesday for eight Massachusetts counties, including Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden, paving the way for federal disaster aid. The declaration provides up to 75 percent federal funding for emergency measures.

Gov. Deval Patrick had requested the aid on Monday. At the height of the storm, about 700,000 Massachusetts residents were without power. By Tuesday evening, more than 299,000 electricity customers were still in the dark. At least five deaths were blamed on the storm.

National Grid and WMECO reported that power should come back for nearly all area customers by Thursday, though there are rare cases in which people won't have power until Friday or Saturday.

"We're continuing to work around the clock and bringing in crews," said WMECO spokeswoman Sandra Ahearn. "As crews finish one area, they are deployed elsewhere right away."

The utilities have hundreds of local and out-of-state workers in the area, clearing trees and limbs and repairing power lines damaged in the historic snowstorm.

While more than half the residents of several communities had power, elsewhere there were still extensive outages Tuesday afternoon, including Belchertown, Leverett, Shutesbury, Southampton and Easthampton.

In other developments, the Northampton public schools are scheduled to reopen today, said Superintendent Brian Salzer. Power has been restored to all six schools and transportation will be operating.

Northampton is one of the few districts scheduled to open today. Most others will be closed, including Amherst, Hadley, Hatfield, South Hadley, Leverett, Easthampton, Hampshire Regional and Williston Northampton.

Smith Vocational Agricultural High School in Northampton will continue to serve as a regional shelter operated by the Red Cross and other agencies for people affected by power outages. Superintendent Arthur Apostolou said if the number of people being served there drops to a point where classes can be held, the school may open before the shelter closes.

"We will be looking at that day to day," he said.

One reason Smith Voke was chosen as a site for a regional shelter is that the buildings have ground-floor access on all sides, Apostolou said. The school also has facilities for food preparation.

Apostolou said 146 people spent the night in the regional shelter on Sunday. That number dropped to 75 on Monday. Many people are also using the facility during the day and returning to their homes at night.

The shelter is scheduled to be open at least through Thursday.

With the exception of Hampshire College, the region's other colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst were all operational on Tuesday.

UMass officials advised in a letter to faculty, staff and students to exercise caution in deciding whether it is safe, given their specific circumstances, to commute to campus.

To support students living off campus, the university opened its Campus Center/Student Union complex 24 hours a day until further notice.

At Mount Holyoke College, spokeswoman Mary Jo Curtis said the college's backup generators were able to heat residence halls and provide hot food for students. Power returned on Monday.

The campus also hosted 175 students from Hampshire College, which lost all power and heat. Cots were set up in the campus's Field House and Hampshire students were fed by Mount Holyoke throughout the crisis.

Hampshire College got its power back at 4 a.m. Tuesday, and the students who were housed at Mount Holyoke were bused back to campus. The campus will open today, and an advising day on Thursday will continue as planned. Classes will begin again on Friday.

Outage figures

National Grid reported that all but 1,400, or 10 percent, of its Northampton customers had power by late Tuesday afternoon.

National Grid also reported that 1,576 customers, or 60 percent, were powerless in Granby.

WMECO reported that the smaller towns of Shutesbury and Leverett were still completely dark. Ahearn said electricity for those towns comes from a damaged circuit in a larger town. Once that circuit is repaired, power should come back quickly, she said.

Many communities postponed Halloween trick-or-treating on Monday, including Shutesbury, where events are now scheduled for Friday evening.

Southampton is also nearly completely dark, with 97 percent, or 2,400 customers without power. Other WMECO towns include Westhampton at 60 percent out, Amherst at 46 percent, Hadley at 40 percent and Hatfield at 27 percent.

In South Hadley, a special Town Meeting set for Tuesday night was rescheduled to Nov. 10 due to lack of a quorum. Only 51 voters turned out for the session, 10 short of the required number.

James Reidy, superintendent of the Department of Public Works, asked residents to collect debris from their property and bring it to the DPW on Industrial Drive for composting.

Meg Clancy, South Hadley Public Library's youth-services librarian, said the 27 Bardwell St. facility is open on its regular schedule and that residents may bring cell phones and laptop computers for recharging.

Amherst Fire Chief Tim Nelson said firefighters are continuing to remove debris from streets and assist with various calls, which have also included vehicles getting tangled in fallen trees and wires.

He urges residents to continue to be patient.

"Power is coming back slowly but surely," Nelson said.

In Easthampton

WMECO made some progress in Easthampton on Tuesday, but as of late afternoon some 5,700 customers, or 71 percent, were still without power.

Ahearn said the town, as well as Southampton, suffered a significant amount of damage and it is taking extra time to get the power back up.

"It's a function of the damage," she said. But, she acknowledged, "It's frustrating when you're sitting in the dark whatever the reason is."

Although much of Easthampton is still in the dark, the downtown areas of Main and Union streets were bustling Tuesday as businesses opened their doors.

On Union Street, drivers filled up on gas at 7-Eleven and Pride and visited Manchester Hardware for the equipment to clear branches and debris from their yards.

Others found a hot meal at Riff's Joint or Antonio's Pizza or stocked up on food and water from Big E's Supermarket, which reopened at noon after removing all the spoiled meat, produce, dairy and deli products from the sales floor.

"A lot of people were glad to see we're open," said owner Mike Superson. "I think a lot of people lost every bit of food in their refrigerators."

Superson said the store's walk-in coolers and freezers held their temperature perfectly, so only perishable products on the sales floor were lost.

Other businesses were not able to reopen despite the fact that the power was on. Jeff Doyle, owner of the Silver Spoon Restaurant, said he could not open because he lost about $1,000 worth of food due to the almost three-day outage at his Main Street restaurant.

A warming shelter was open during the day Tuesday at White Brook Middle School, but Fire Chief David Mottor said no one came. Because of the lack of interest during the day, city officials turned down an offer from administrators at The Williston Northampton School to use a dormitory for an overnight shelter, Mottor said.

A feeding center set up at the Public Safety Complex offered residents hot meals on Tuesday night. Community Center Director Robin Bialecki, who helped organize the meal, said nearly 200 residents were fed Monday evening.

National Guard crews were released from the city during the day Tuesday after helping the Department of Public Works open almost all city roads.

Mottor said major roads that remain closed are sections of Strong and Hendricks streets, and some parts of Loudville Road are reduced one lane. Other side streets still have to be cleared.

Staff writers Barbara Solow, Dave Canton, Rebecca Everett, Etta Walsh and Scott Merzbach contributed to this report.