PSNH: Multiple Days Required to Restore NH Power

A storm ripped through New Hampshire on Thursday night causing massive power outages across the state. Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) said in an automated voice message, that they were aware of power outages in nearly every community across the state. PSNH anticipates that it will take "multiple days" to restore electrical service to every affected community. At the present time, they are unable to provide estimates of when power may be restored to any particular area.

PSNH Status Updates on Twitter

PSNH is actively updating current condition on Twitter at twitter.com/PSNH. In a tweet released just before 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, PSNH estimated that 264,000 customers, amounting 54% of New Hampshire residents, were still without power. They also said that crews were "ramping up" to repair power lines. By 5:00 a.m. Saturday, this number had been reduced to 227,000 PSNH customers still without electricity. Early Saturday morning, accumulating snow complicated efforts to restore power, adding additional weight to trees already lying on power lines.

First-hand Observations of Damage in Strafford County

A drive through Strafford county, New Hampshire, revealed many trees completely toppled, including one large pine tree on Route 4 near Coe-Brown Northwood Academy that fell across two cars parked in a residential driveway. Several trees fell across power lines in the area, including one on 1^st Crown Point Road that completely blocked egress from the mountain for several hours until a road crew removed half of the tree, clearing one lane and leaving the rest of the tree suspended from the drooping power lines above the roadway.

Crews from Connecticut Light & Power Assisting PSNH Storm Recovery

PSNHNews.com is telling customers that 220 crews are out repairing lines and cutting back fallen trees, including 75 crews imported for this storm event from Connecticut Light & Power, a sister company of PSNH. Meanwhile, New Hampshire residents without power, heat and water should contact their local community officials for locations of the nearest shelter. Many communities have set up emergency relief shelters for those stranded without heat for their homes.

Towns with no Electrical Power

While many communities had partial power outages. PSNHNews.com published the following list of towns which were expereincing 100% power outages as of 9:00 p.m. on Friday: Allenstown, Alton,Atkinson, Auburn, Barnstead, Barrington, Bow, Bradford, Brookfield, Candia, Canterbury, Cheste, Concord, Deerfield, Dunbarton, Durham, Enfield, Epping, Epsom, Fremont, Hampstead, Lee, Madbury, Middleton, New Boston, New Castle, New Durham, Newmarket, Northwood, Nottingham, Pelham, Pembroke, Sandown, Strafford, Stratham, Sutton, Thronton, Wakefield, Weare, Webster, Windham and Windsor. With such comprehensive outages across the state, it was not clear if power would be restored to community schools in these areas by the start of Monday classes.

Sources:

PSNH Customer Service telephone line

PSNH. February Wind Storm 2010. Updated at 2:15 p.m. on 2/26/2010. Retrieved from psnhnews.com/latestnews.cfm?lnid=174 on February 26, 2010.

PSNH Twitter account. Retrieved from twitter.com/psnh on February 26, 2010.