How many people here are/were without electric power in NH and MA...

[Silent3]

...because of the big ice storm?

Our power went out at home around 9:30 PM last night. Except for about a 10 second teaser of returned power around 11:30 PM, the power hasn't come back since. I'm at work at the moment, but we didn't have power in the office for a while either. It was on when I came in at around 8:00 AM this morning, but went out around 9:20 AM, and when it didn't come back on for half an hour, we were sent home.

Since I live close to work I came back in to see if the power was on again -- it was -- and since I work in a building big enough to have showers, my wife and I took advantage of that. Our new house has an electric pump with a small holding tank, so we dare not run much water at home until the power comes back, including flushing toilets.

That, and the indoor temperature at home has gone down to about 60°F, so it's a bit chilly for taking a shower too.

The worst we've been through with something like this was back in 1998, another big ice storm, and we lost power for about 30 hours. The storm last night was an historic record breaker, with more than half the people in NH losing power, about 5-6 times as many people as lost power in 1998. In light of that, only losing power for 30 hours might be getting off easy this time. Then again, people less than a mile from our house do have power, so maybe it won't take too much longer for our power to come back.

I'm sure an unlucky few will be waiting days for power. We drove past one house where the house's individual power line had been pulled down, with some wiring conduit bent over and yanked down coming out of the side of the house. Those poor folks probably have a really long wait.

In 1998 our hold house got down to about 50°F before the power and heat came back, with temperatures being in the mid twenties outside I think.

For me the hardest part of all of this is internet withdrawal. :) At least I've got my iPhone, but cell phone service has been spotty too, and I've got to keep the phone charged. I'm doing pretty well, however, all things considered. People in more rural areas with poorly insulated homes are going to have the worst time.

I imagine a lot of you out there in the same boat won't even be able to get onto DU until you get power back.

I'm hoping after killing some time here at the office I'll come home to find the power back on again!

[Silent3]

1. Hmmm...

Am I the only DUer in the blackout who's managed to get online?

The restaurants with power are doing a booming business tonight.

[Raven]

2. Hello from Monadnock! We got knocked out at about 2 am last night.

I have an emergency generator so I have power but no phone and the internet (Hughes Dish) was out until about 2 hours ago. Cheers! Stay safe!

[Silent3]

3. How did your dish service get knocked out?

Dish got iced up? I was thinking today how nice it might be to have satellite Internet as a backup to cable, not that I'd want to spend much just for backup Internet. :)

[SoxFan]

8. South Willow St. was a circus yesterday

South Willow St., the main shopping drag in Manchester with the mall and the big boxes, was a world class gaggle yesterday. I think a lot of people from Londonderry, Auburn, and Candia got sick of being stuck in an unheated house and went shopping.

[Silent3]

9. The restaurants and businesses around here...

...that have power are certainly getting an economic boost from this storm. We had a really long wait for dinner last, along with everyone else with no power to cook at home. And we had to check three different stores to find some D-cell batteries.

One of the places we checked for batteries was Home Depot. A section of the stored had been roped off and chairs set up for all of the people waiting for first dibs on a shipment of emergency generators that was coming in.

What's kind of ironic is that we just moved into a new house first week of November, a house that was built for us. One of the extra features we'd requested was a pre-wired hook-up for an emergency generator. When all of the extras added up to more than we wanted to spend, that's one of the features we axed to trim costs.

Of course, even if we'd had that hook-up ready to go, there's no way we would have already gotten around to buying a generator, so at best we would have been one of those people in line waiting for hours waiting and probably not getting one.

[Silent3]

4. Ah, power!

I haven't been home yet, but I've been phoning home to see if my answering machine -- which needs AC power -- would pick up... and it finally did! :)

No guarantees in this mess that power will stay up, but this is a good sign.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. We were out overnight in this part of ME but it came back mid-morning or so.

[Silent3]

6. Bump

Bumping the thread for people who might finally be back online.

PSNH (the power company here in NH) says on their web site:

As of 8:00 a.m., PSNH reports that about 313,000 of its customers are without power, as a result of the December 11 ice storm that brought down trees and branches on power lines and utility equipment statewide.

Since that's not a big improvement over yesterday, when PSNH was reporting 320,000 customers without power, it looks like I was among the lucky few (although not as lucky as people who never lost power at all!) who got their power restored pretty quickly -- it was out for about 22 1/2 hours total.

[SoxFan]

7. Manchester-We were ok

We live in Manchester, just north of downtown, and we didn't lose power at all.

My brother over in Atkinson and my parents in Kingston (both small towns near Haverhill, Mass) are without power.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. I guess we should assume anyone

who does not answer is powerless?

[Silent3]

13. I'm sure that's the case for many people...

...but a lot of people, at least I hope, are finding refuge with friends and relatives who have power, or are at least getting out of their unpowered homes long enough to get into a work place with power for a time.

Of course, not everyone is as much of an internet junkie as I am, so their major priorities when they finally get some temporary access to power and data might not include posting to DU. :)

[Maine-ah]

11. I dunno about NH and MA but in ME the last report I heard was 200k

[Silent3]

12. I didn't know Maine was hit so hard too

I get the impression from what I've read that damaging ice storms are usually much more localized than this. This particular storm was very unusual for not for the amount of damage in any given area (I've seen much worse) but for the total area affected.

I hope you guys in Maine are doing okay and back up and running soon too!