Monitor staff and wire reports
Published: 2/16/2021 10:48:40 AM
A winter storm that ravaged parts of the country, including deadly tornadoes in North Carolina and rolling blackouts across the South and Midwest, mostly spared New Hampshire, which saw moderate amounts of mixed precipitation that led to scattered power outages and car accidents.
Unitil reported a few hundred customers without power Tuesday morning in pockets around the Concord area from Epsom to Hopkinton to Boscawen. Most of those were resolved by the end of the day.
The situation was similar with Eversource, with about 1,350 customers affected as of 3:30 p.m. The largest pockets at that tim e were in Deering and Weare; the Deerfield, Farmington, Northwood area and Rochester.
Fears of massive outages caused by ice accumulating on branches bringing down power lines mostly waned as the storm turned to rain in southern areas of the state. Accidents from slick roads were reported from the Seacoast to the North Country.
“While the greatest risk for hazardous ice currently appears to be in higher elevation areas, temperature changes of just one or two degrees can significantly change the overall impact ice can have on the system,” Unitil Media Relations Manager Alec O’Meara said in advance of the storm. “Crews will be standing by in the areas at greatest risk, and we continue to closely monitor the forecast and remain prepared to escalate our response further if warranted.”
State police said icy roads led to dozens of crashes including one that closed lanes on Route 16 in Dover and another on I-393 in Chichester, but no fatalities or serious injuries were reported as of Tuesday morning.
In Merrimack County, a winter weather advisory continued into Tuesday evening.
By 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 0.9 inches of precipitation had been measured at the Concord Airport.