New Hampshire is slowly getting back to normal after five days of rain.
More schools are opening and roads are getting repaired.
And the National Guard has fewer troops out in local communities.
Still state officials are closely monitoring several areas of concern.
Jim Van Dongen with the Office of Emergency Management gave this update to NHPR's Mark Bevis.
Van Dongen: "The real big issue that opened up late yesterday, of course, is the dam in Bristol, the upper IPC dam. That's going to be a major project underway today, removing debris and then relieving pressure on that system, there's a system of four dams that has to be addressed to take care of the one that's experienced some structural problems."
Bevis: "What's the problem there?"
Van Dongen: "There's a series of four dams in Bristol. Newfound Lake Dam is a state dam, which is the impoundment for Newfound Lake. That's followed by a series of three dams on Newfound River- the upper IPC dam was discovered to have some welds that had failed and were in the process of getting worse. The process of removing debris started on Tuesday to take pressure off. Now, some of the two lower dams are gonna be- their level is going to be lowered so that the water level on the upper IPC dam, the challenged dam, can be reduced as well. And that process is pretty much going on as we speak early in the morning."
Bevis: "Have folks been evacuated from downstream?"
Van Dongen: "There were 200 to 400 households that were evacuated late on Tuesday. Some of those people are on shelters, but most of them are staying with relatives or friends."
Bevis: "What about the rest of the state, how about the dams up on Milton to Salmon Falls, that way?"
Van Dongen: "Generally speaking, the other dozen or so dams that we were concerned with as a part of this flooding episode- the pressure is being relieved on them as the water goes down, so that the threat from any of those dams is lower and lower. But, just like we discovered rather late in the episode, as the water goes down, local authorities may find more situations like this, so we can't take it for granted that everything is going to get better completely from here on out."
Bevis: "I understand from the National Weather Service that most, if not all, of the rivers have crested and that they're all going down at this point, is that what you're hearing as well?"
Van Dongen: "That's correct. The rivers were mostly cresting as of yesterday. Some of them were still above flood stage, but at least they were coming down. That process, obviously, is going to continue. And things will get better that day. As long as the weather continues to cooperate we may be out of the woods finally."
Bevis: "What about water treatment, water and contamination of water supplies?"
Van Dongen: "I'm not aware of any wide-scale contamination of water, but we'd still urge people to use caution. Some water treatment plants have been out of commission at different times during this flooding episode. And people need, of course, to be careful of their own wells, if they were over-topped by any flood waters."
Bevis: "Anything people should be looking for on their way to work or school?"
Van Dongen: "Obviously more and more people are getting back to work, back to school, back into their normal routines, but they may find traffic barricades, they may find detours, they really have to cooperate with local officials and respect those traffic barriers, cause there's still threats out there to life and safety."
Bevis: "So I'd imagine as more people go back to work or back to school we may see more congestion."
Van Dongen: "I would expect that to happen, because the roads still- while we've seen a decrease in the number of roads that are closed, we're gonna see a significant increase in traffic as people head back into their normal routines."
