KEENE, NH – Hundreds of Eversource line crews are out working to repair damage and restore power as quickly as safely as possible during this late season winter storm.
In an update late Thursday afternoon, the power company said trees across the state were already weakened by last week’s ice and windstorm and are buckling under the heavy, wet snow and strong winds that came along with this week’s storm.
Since the storm began to ramp up in New Hampshire Wednesday night, crews have restored power to nearly 91,000 customers. That includes more than 71,000 in fewer than five minutes by remote system operations using switching technology.
As of 3:30 Thursday afternoon about 110,000 people remain without power. Additional crews will be coming in from Massachusetts and Connecticut once restoration efforts are complete in those states to lend a hand as a multi-day restoration effort is expected in New Hampshire.
“The electric system continues to take on damage and we will have to complete damage assessment before we have a specific timeline for restoring power for all customers, but we know this will be a multi-day restoration effort with the massive destruction to trees caused by this early spring Nor’easter,” said Eversource New Hampshire President of Electric Operations Doug Foley.
Additional outages are likely as the storm begins to move out of the state.
Eversource has received more than 830 public safety reports, and the storm has caused at least 234 blocked roads and 84 broken pipes across the state thus far. While the electric system in every region of the state has been damaged, communities in southern and central areas were the hardest hit.
Eversource is reminding customers to steer clear of downed wires, keep your pets away, and report them immediately to police.