Day 12: The Ice Storm Outages Drag On

EG1: PSNH has restored power to more than 300,000 customers since the ice storm hit on Thursday December eleventh.
More than 6,000 households outside Keene are still without electricity.
PSNH spokesperson Martin Murray:
Wherecustomers.wav: The largest number of customers without power now are in the Monadnock region. So it’s those towns like Fitzwiliam, Ringe, New Ipswich, Jaffrey, that area was physically devastated. 15 secs
EG2: For everyone involved in the storm – from officials to people sick of going without heat and water -– the outages have gotten old.
Jim Van Dongen is the spokesman for the state’s department of emergency management:
Jim Van D.wav: We’re feeling like yesterday’s news here, but we’re still here in the EOC, still camped out watching the utilities do their thing. They’ve got more than 1,000 crews out there, tree crews and line crews, but it’s still taking an awful long time getting these last remaining customers back up. 15 secs
As these last remaining customers wait for power, frustrations continue to rise.
Responding to complaints from the public and from town officials, The Public Utility Commission and the legislature have both said they’ll investigate utilities’ response to the ice storm.
Pamela Walsh is Governor Lynch’s deputy chief of staff:
Pam.Walsh.wav: As the governor has been saying for a number of days he believes that the utilities need to do a better job communicating with communities about the damage done, timetables, problems they’re running into that may be delaying estimates and things of that nature.
EG: PSNH’s Martin Murray says that it no longer has any communities without estimates for restoration.
H e says 95% of PSNH’s customers everywhere will have power by the end of the day Tuesday, five days later than the utility promised last week.
And, he says, individual outages will take longer to fix.
Aaron Harris is one of those unlucky ones.
The Greenfield resident and volunteer firefighter still has no power – although everyone else on his road does.
He says he feels alternately frustrated by the inconvenience – and grateful for his wood-burning stove and the generosity of his neighbors.
We’ve done without laundry or showers or lights for quite some time. We live in a real rural area so without lights it’s pitch black. 12 seconds
So he and his family have spent a lot of time at the Greenfield fire department, which is serving as a warming station for this town of nineteen hundred.
And, he says, the fire department has been the focal point for a townspeople who have rallied to help each other.
Aaron Harris moved to Greenfield from Seattle and, four years later, is still surprised by the town’s response to the crisis.
Smalltown.wav: There is a true small town community type feel, even though we live in this modern era – that when we lose everything, people respond very quickly. Neighbors sorta knew each other well enough to know what to do and turned around and just sorta stepped up and did what they needed to do.
At the same time, Harris says, he could have done without the storm.
Governor Lynch has requested federal disaster assistance.
If President Bush agrees, all ten counties in the state will qualify for federal aid.
Preliminary assessments show that the state has suffered at least $15 million in losses from the storm.
For NHPR News, I’m Elaine Grant.