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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Still no power

In the massive ice storm that hit New England, New Hampshire was the hardest hit state. In New Hampshire, the area hardest hit was the southwest, the Monadnock region. We are in the Monadnock region and still have no power for 5 days. The extent of the damage is enormous. Whole mountain tops look like a giant chain saw sheared off the trees half way. Many towns still with no power. The Public Service of New Hampshire says it is the worst ice storm they have EVER had. So many trees fell and took down the power lines and telephone poles.

The first priority is to establish the main power lines and get power to emergency services like police, fire departments and hospitals in the area. Power has been restored to some of the town centers like Peterborough, Greenfield, Antrim, Dublin. But it could be quite a while before power is restored to all the smaller roads and homes along those roads. I am in the library writing this blog. I have just seen 6 big electric repair trucks working on the main line south of Peterborough. One of the trucks was from Indiana. Crews from many states have come to help.

We have a wood stove that heats the house to about 55 when it is very cold out. We have to restock it every 3 hours during the night. We are hopeful we will get power soon, then we can return to blogging.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope they restore your power quickly. Try to stay warm.

Anonymous said...

Lillian, I am an avid reader of your blog, and I am writing this from a wireless connection on a laptop that I recharged at a friends house.

I feel for you, and sadly we are in the same boat. I am in Derry. The southeast was hit just as hard, by some reports Derry was the virtual "epicenter" of this thing. We lost power on Thursday night and have not seen it since. It looks literally like a warzone. everywhere. we have been told that we might not see power to our home well after this coming weekend. thanks to our woodstove we have been able to stay in our home, and I feel for everyone who has had to resort to a shelter to keep warm.

its just not pretty. I wish you warmth, and hope that everyone gets back up and running soon.

Vashti said...

Stay warm and snuggle up with the dogs... hope that you have your power back soon. Take care!

Mary C said...

Lillian and Don, I am so sorry to hear about your lack of power for so long, and the temps are so low. I pray that your entire area of New Hampshire will have power restored shortly. You must be lacking sleep if you have to keep restocking the stove every 3 hours.

Anonymous said...

I remember an ice storm that hit southern MN a few years ago. For a couple of days after, the branches on the trees were still snapping off. It sounded like rifle shots! They would get the power on and then a few hours later it would go off again. Another branch would break off somewhere. We bought a generator and had it hooked up to our main service by an electrician. It's saved us a couple of times. Good Luck!

Anonymous said...

I hope your power is on again soon! Being without, particularly in very cold weather is just awful! We have a lot of outages here (life in a forest) so we have a generator -- mostly because my husband works at home so he can still function when the power is out.

ChrisJ said...

Stay warm. We are expecting 3 inches of rain tomorrow and some wind, which is all big news around here1

Peggy said...

What a tragedy, I can't imagine...I'm hoping your power will return very soon, stay warm!

Lillian Stokes said...

Hi All,
Thank you all for your kind words. We are still without power but have gotten a generator, so we can have the furnace, cold water and some lights and charge the computer. We are in the hardest hit area of NH and 30,000 people are still without power. More later,
Lillian, Don, Phoebe and Abby