NH and Maine Residents Struggle as Hundreds of Thousands Remain Without Power

DEBARYLIFE – Electricity companies in New Hampshire and Maine say their crews will be working all weekend to get power back on for hundreds of thousands of people who lost it during this week’s nor’easter. The storm brought down trees and power lines, leaving the two states without electricity.

Maine and New Hampshire got snow, strong winds, and ocean flooding from the spring system that started Wednesday night and went through Thursday. Many people lost power and city buildings and schools were closed through Friday.

The storm cut power to as many as 375,000 people in Maine, according to Jon Breed, a spokesman for Central Maine Power. Around 140,000 people had their power back on by early Friday afternoon.

He told reporters Friday afternoon, “I think we’ll be working until Sunday.”

The power company said that as of 1:30 p.m. Friday, more than 223,000 Central Maine Power customers still did not have power in Maine. It has been dark for a long time in York County because of the storm, and more than 76,700 Central Maine Power users were without power.

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“This is what happens when the weather changes.” Breed said, “This is what happens when the climate changes.” “We’re spending money to make the grid stronger and more secure.” It will fall off the trees when there is a foot and a half of snow that is as hard as cement on them.

Central Maine Power said in a news release on Thursday that parts of the state that were hit the hardest might have to wait until next week to get back to normal.

By Saturday, the utility organization will have sent 1,000 teams all over the state. Before the storm, Central Maine Power had 450 workers ready to go.

Working with city officials during the storm on Thursday and the damage it caused meant that Central Maine Power crews couldn’t start most of their repair work until early Friday morning.

Breed said that Central Maine Power had to respond to more than 1,200 emergency calls on Thursday.

He said of coastal Maine, “We’re working through a lot of work down there.” The next two days should be very productive, according to me. Already, a lot of neighborhoods are getting better.

What amount of snow did you get?

The Gray, Maine office of the National Weather Service put out a list of how much snow fell in Maine and New Hampshire on Friday morning.

It rained 1.2 inches in Kittery Point and 15 inches in Sanford. In the middle, South Berwick reported 3.8 inches, while Berwick reported 6.8 inches, Wells reported 9.3 inches, and Kennebunk reported 10 inches.

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Greenland and Durham, New Hampshire got 4.5 inches of snow, Portsmouth International Airport got 5.8 inches, northern Dover got 6.5 inches, Northwood got 9.5 inches, and Barrington got 12.1 inches.

Eversource and Unitil are working to get power back on in New Hampshire.
Eversource and Unitil representatives have said that restoring power in New Hampshire will probably take more than one day.

Eversource said at 1:35 p.m. Friday that about 53,300 customers in New Hampshire were without power. That’s just under 10% of all of its users in the state.

Over 2,200 Eversource line, tree, and service crews, some from out of state, are working to get power back on for people in Granite State, according to Kaitlyn Woods, a spokeswoman for the company.

“There will be about the same number of crews as we had for some of the worst storms in the history of our state last year.” Trees were already weak from last week’s ice and wind storms, and now the heavy, wet snow from this nor’easter has made them even weaker, she wrote in an email Friday afternoon. “When the strong winds blew across the state, they destroyed trees and made it very hard for our crews to get around, with roads blocked or closed, wires down, and snow that looked like cement all over the state.”

After the storm started on Wednesday night, Eversource had restored power to more than 194,000 users by Friday at 1 p.m. Woods says that over 75,900 of those power losses were fixed in less than five minutes with the help of smart switches that Eversource has put in its system.

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In addition, the company is clearing 300 roads that are blocked, fixing 125 broken poles, and taking care of more than 1,000 public safety problems across New Hampshire.

She said, “Today, we’ve been focused on safely carrying out our plan to get the thousands of crews helping with this huge restoration effort to the hardest-hit areas so that we can restore power to our remaining (about) 58,000 customers as quickly and safely as possible. We’ll also continue to take care of any community priorities and finish clearing roads that are blocked.”

Many of those came from Rochester, where more than 2,200 Eversource customers were without power on Friday afternoon.

“North Rochester and Chocorua are the hardest-hit areas, and we’re still moving resources there to fix the damage,” Woods said.

Unitil has more than 79,500 customers in New Hampshire. At 1:50 p.m. Friday, about 3,400 of those customers still didn’t have power. Over 1,000 customers of Unitil were without power in Exeter, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Seabrook, and Stratham at that time. The company said that service wouldn’t be back on until Saturday before 1 p.m.

Unitil said in a news release Friday morning that most of its users won’t have power back on until Saturday around noon.

The supplier wrote, “Customers are reminded that if they see downed wires, they should assume that all cables and wires that have fallen or are dangling are live and stay away from them.” “Avoid puddles or wet ground near a downed line because water moves electricity around.” Stay away from areas that are wet and full of trash, too, because they could hide downed power lines. Stay safe and don’t drive in damaged areas so you don’t get in the way of rescue and repair work.

Officials in Hampton, Portsmouth, and York Beach deal with the effects of the storm
Anyone who lost power can now stay warm at the Hampton fire station on Brown Avenue, which opened on Friday. At that point, 326 people still didn’t have power, according to Alex Reno, chief of police in Hampton.

He said that some should be back up and running by 11 a.m. that same day. If not, he said that Until would give a time range of 7 to 9 a.m. on Saturday. He explained that it was because their teams had a lot of work to do across the whole state.

“I believe they are working hard to get the power back on,” Reno said.

Most of the power outages were caused by heavy, wet snow that clung to trees and twigs that fell into power lines. He said every few years some storms knock out power.

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It was especially bad in Hampton because of the wet, heavy snow, Reno said.

Head of Public Works in Portsmouth, Peter Rice, said that the city had fewer power blackouts than the rest of the state. Similarly to Hampton, he said that the heavy, wet snow made trees and twigs fall on power lines.

Portsmouth’s water plant in Madbury lost power, so it needed full-time workers to make sure it was still working right.

Rice told them, “We’re lucky.” “It’s not comforting for the people who lost power, but it hasn’t affected how we do business anyway.”

Chief Jeff Welch, the fire chief of York Beach, said that at one point, almost the whole town lost power. He said that in 24 hours, both of the town’s fire departments—the other one was the York Village Fire Department—helped with 90 calls.

Several power blackouts were caused by trees falling on power lines and strong winds, according to Welch.

Our schedule was very full, Welch said.