CNHI News Service
North Andover, Mass.
December 12, 2008 12:01 pm
—
A late fall ice storm put New England in a deep freeze this week, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people and businesses in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Utility companies said it would take several days to restore service.
Schools and roads throughout the region were closed Friday morning as a mix of rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow that began falling Thursday night continued.
Firefighters bounced between reports of toppled utility poles, downed lines, transformer explosions, trees burning because of downed wires and trees falling on houses.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency to give utility and emergency crews time to address the problems. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch declared an emergency in his state, as well.
"This is a really extreme situation we are experiencing," said National Grid spokeswoman Jackie Barry. The utility reported about 100,000 Massachusetts customers without power as of 5 a.m. Friday. Most were in the Merrimack Valley and Central Massachusetts.
About 230,000 the 500,000 homes and businesses served by Public Service of New Hampshire were without power. The utility said it would have 180 line crews on the job today, though it warned it may take several days to restore everyone's power.
More than 41,000 New Hampshire Electric Cooperative customers had no electricity, either.
The storm hit especially hard in the city of Haverhill, on the New Hampshire border. About 14,000 homes and businesses had no power as of 10 a.m. In neighboring Methuen, 11,000 were in the dark.
Like many other New England cities and towns, Haverhill declared its own state of emergency. Mayor Jim Fiorentini was asking the City Council's permission to spend money on emergency chainsaws and overtime for public works crews.
Only a few parts of the city electricity. It was littered with downed lines and trees, including a large branch that fell across a deck on Acorn St. about 1:30 in the morning.
The deck was destroyed.
"It was so scary when it hit," said Larisa Yakushian. "We couldn't sleep after that."
This story was reported by The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, Mass.
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Photos
In Methuen, Mass., a tree down on Concord Street was a familiar scene as the first storm of the winter swept through the Merrimack Valley, causing massive power outages. Photo credit Tim Jean/The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, Mass. THE EAGLE-TRIBUNE (NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.)