N.H. begins recovery after superstorm Sandy blows through state

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While Monday’s storm knocked out power for 210,000 New Hampshire residents, officials yesterday said the damage was more superficial than structural, with power lines snapped to the ground but most poles still standing and roadways littered with tree limbs but not washed out by rushing waters.

For some electric customers, the conditions could mean a quick recovery, and yesterday evening more than 110,000 homes that had lost power already had it back. But state officials warned that the outlying outages could remain for some time, possibly into the weekend.

“We don’t see the damage caused by extensive flooding with this storm that we’ve seen in the previous storms,” Gov. John Lynch said at a morning briefing as crews surveyed the effects of the storm that barreled through from about 3 p.m. Monday into yesterday morning. “However, to those people who are without power and who will end up going most of the week without power, it’s still pretty significant for them.”

The 210,000 outages make Sandy one of the state’s most significant storms, behind only the 2008 ice storm, 2010 wind storm and 2011 snow storm in terms of customers in the dark. Officials said the harshest damage this time was seen in Hillsborough, Rockingham and Strafford counties. Wind gusts were anticipated to hit the 50 to 60 mph range, and yesterday National Weather Service Meteorologist John Jensenius said blasts were recorded at 62 mph in Londonderry, 60 mph in Portsmouth and 52 mph in Newington.

In Concord, wind speeds hit 51 mph, according to Jensenius. He said Sandy delivered much of what meteorologists expected – wind surges strongest in the southern towns and about one to three inches of rainfall, more in the mountains.

After the winds tapered off, crews yesterday focused heavily on damage assessment rather than restoration, according to state officials.

Unitil, which services much of the Capital Region and saw about 41,000 outages at the peak, expected to nearly reach full restoration today with limited outages possible tomorrow. But Public Service of New Hampshire, which has more than doubled the size of its repair force with crews from as far as Texas, said its recovery effort could continue until Friday or Saturday,

Yesterday afternoon the company received confirmation that Hydro-Quebec would send 75 two-person crews down from Canada, news that PSNH President Gary Long said could knock days off the effort.

“We already have assignments for them,” Long said, adding that teams could be here by this afternoon. “So as soon as they arrive we’re putting them to work.”

Early calls

Emergency calls began coming into the Concord Fire Department at about 3 p.m. Monday. Chief Dan Andrus said that through midnight his department had a steady stream of callers, about 50 in total, ranging from diabetics needing to keep their insulin refrigerated to parents wondering what to do if their children’s ventilators cut off to elderly residents anxious over being in the dark.

“I was expecting we would have trees into buildings,” Andrus said. “I was expecting we would have significant levels of structural damage and literally roofs peeling off. I was thinking there were going to be serious injuries associated with that.”

After midnight, phone traffic dropped off to normal levels.

Andrus said that at the peak about 10,300 people in the city were without power, a number that had fallen to 2,000 by mid-morning yesterday and about 100 last night.

In Dunbarton, firefighters saw calls taper off around midnight. Chief Jonathan Wiggin said he and the other firefighters actually went home around 12:30 a.m. after fielding about 30 calls since the storm started

Two callers reported having smoke in their homes, one because an electrical panel overcharged and another because a generator overpowered the outlets, Wiggin said.

PSNH crews had a quick response to initial outages in the town, Wiggin said, but after those repairs were made Monday afternoon, the storm picked up and knocked out power again. After returning to work yesterday morning, Wiggin said he found most of the town was without electricity, and last night outage data showed about a third were still in the dark.

“It’s been pretty busy,” Wiggin said. “Now we’re just waiting patiently on the power companies.”

Riverbanks still weak

Initial concerns of flooding subsided yesterday afternoon. But officials, while reporting that almost all of the rivers at flood levels were receding, warned that banks remain weak.

“Riverbanks may be very unstable, and we don’t want to see riverbanks sliding off and people sliding off into the water,” said Environmental Services Commissioner Thomas Burack. “So please, be safe. Love those rivers but give them some distance for the moment.”

Saturated grounds contributed to one fatality in Lincoln yesterday morning, where the police said a man died when a stone wall fell on him. Lincoln police Chief Ted Smith said the man was helping pour a foundation for a home being constructed on a sloped mountainside.

“The entire area was soaking wet, and the hole was filled with water from runoff. They apparently tried to pump the water out,” Smith said. “The ground gave way and basically you had a mud slide and water slide because the foundation itself became a dam and he was carried down a two or three story fall.”

Construction workers and paramedics administered CPR, but the man was pronounced dead shortly after being moved into an ambulance, Smith said.

State police Director Col. Robert Quinn said there were no major car accidents reported during the storm, and Lynch attributed the small number of serious incidents to residents heeding warnings to stay off the roadways. He applauded businesses who let employees leave work early.

About 275 public schools were closed yesterday, and another 75 opened late, education officials said.

The state ran five shelters Monday and about 40 people stayed there that night. Yesterday evening only shelters in Auburn and Nashua were still being used, but state officials said others could be reopened if needed.

Closed roadways – about 32 state and 201 municipal roads at one count early yesterday – were slowly being cleared yesterday. Department of Safety spokesman Jim Van Dongen said last night the number had fallen to about 11 state and 141 local roads.

“It’s simply a lot of grunt work to clear trees and wires out. It’s also dangerous, and it’s not something you can rush,” he said, adding that officials expect the road openings to coincide with the electricity restoration effort.

President Obama granted Lynch’s request for a state of emergency declaration yesterday, a move that officials say will allow New Hampshire communities to more directly receive federal aid. Damage reports from municipalities are due to the state by noon today, according to Andrus, who encouraged businesses and residents to report property damage and any potential economic loss to the fire department this morning.

Amy Ignatius, head of the state’s Public Utilities Commission, said she doesn’t expect Tuesday’s elections to be impacted by the outages. She said electricity should be fully restored by then, and state officials are making it a priority to have power and telephones turned on at voting places well before the polls open.

(Tricia L. Nadolny can be reached at 369-3306 or tnadolny@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @tricia_nadolny.)