Just when you think that the weather can only improve - Mother Nature hits with a 1-2-3-4 punch.
Here in New Hampshire we have been under the gun since the ice storm that hit and crippled our electrical grid on December 11, 2008 leaving nearly 400,000 homes without power.
Electrical workers from all over the country and Canada responded to help get our state back up and running. Well, since then, as these brave men and women worked 17 hours a day, we have been hit with three seperate snow events.
The first snowfall of our winter season came on the 17th while still over 100,000 were without power. We had several inches of the white stuff fall but the workers never lost their stride.
Then we were warned that we would receive a second snowfall on the 19th. We received up to a foot of snow in some regions still reeling from the ice storm but the work continued though slowed a bit. There were about 40,000 still without power at this point and some of them started to turn ugly, fueled by their frustrations regarding the lack of communication by officials from the power companies.
Next we prepared for the third punch starting the morning of the 21st ( at this point about 25,000 were still without power and some were expected to lose power again from the impending storm) and ending after dumping 12 - 18 additional inches of snow across the area and followed by gusting winds.
Through it all the line workers continued to work the task at hand. There are reports that power may not be fully restored until the new year but these people push forward regardless of the weather.
We lost power last night as the winds started to pick up in the aftermath of the storm. I called my electrical supplier and reported the outage. They gave me an estimated time of 4:22am for the line to be repaired. I opened my eyes at 5:10am and the lights were restored!
Good work! Thanks to those who work so hard in the elements to keep us comfortable. We may want to rethink who we admire as heros. I think these people deserve a medal!
If you enjoy snow and all the activities connected to it - the conditions here are great so come and visit our beautiful snow laden state.
Judy Tuscano, REALTOR
Your NH Real Estate Professional
Prudential Verani Realty
603-498-2263 cell phone
jude1220@yahoo.com
;)
;)
You were lucky.
I was without power to 8 days and many in my town are still without today. PSNH and Unitel both have a lot to answer for.
In the year 2008 for people to freeze in their homes is unacceptable. I know many of the workers busted their humps to restore power to those without but I believe the process was mismanaged from the get go.
During the outage Twitter was my only means of communication and I followed #Icestorm2008 and @PSNH to find out what was happening. It's amazing how big a role Twitter played during the outage for many local NH people. Let's hope our power stays on...we lost ours last night again and I immediately sent a tweet to @psnh and they responded within minutes telling me what was happening.
I still feel cold.