The state continues to grapple with the fallout from last weekend's floods.
Road crews were repairing a bridge in Hinsdale.
The governor coordinated relief efforts in Alstead.
And in those communities, as well as others, people are trying to sort out their next steps.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein has more.
State Representative John Pratt stood at what used to be the intersection of routes 12A and 123 in Alstead.
Sfx: Cold River
2:52 straight ahead of us is the Cold River and that's what surged and took everything out.
T.12
7:11 the real old times that have been here 50-60 years never seen anything like this, including the hurricane in '38. which was pretty devastating in this area. The ice storms, nothing compared with the devastation here. It's just extraordinary.
The gas station that used to sit here, not to mention the two roads, have been replaced by the rushing water of Cold River.
Dividing the current is a little island where the river has deposited a neat 15-20 ft. pile of wreckage.
Pratt picks up the story of what happened Sunday morning.
4:48 ...it was just a wall of water, came down, all the way, it is a very windy curvy road, and the wall just came straight down. If there was a house in front of it, it took the house. It did not follow the road.
T.5
1:36 And we watched that wall of water come and the top of it was like watching cars surfing.
That's Alstead resident Cathy Nicely.
At the time she was watching the wave from her side porch.
...There were cars surfing, roofs, and tops of houses, and furniture and refrigerators, all along the top of the water that came at us.
Nicely considers herself lucky, she only lost about 2 acres of her backyard to the water.
A number of residents appear shaken, if that's the right word for it.
Town elementary school teachers, Linda Hanitow and Loraine Chaffey know some of their students are rattled.
T.7
3:34...I talked to a parent and they were evacuated to Swanzey, and she says it started to rain, and her daughter started crying...the boy down the road here has his backpack at the door b/c he is living right next to the bridge where they are trying to repair it and he wants to get out. He's a 4th or 5th grader and he's so scared.
Governor John Lynch spent much of yesterday coordinating cleanup efforts in Alstead.
He described the scene here as unparalleled in the state.
Throughout the community, Department of Transportation officials worked with phone and utility companies to restore power and phone service.
Lynch says a few hundred families in town still don't have electricity.
T.9
3:13 we are putting together a newsletter which details the timing of restoring power and communications to the families. And we will actually be going door-to-door...to deliver that newsletter and making sure they are aware of the timing and what we are doing.
Lynch says by later today cable and phone service should be back online.
He expects power should return for all but 50 homes by the end of the week.
The diagnosis for bridges and roads isn't as rosy.
Bruce Chenney is the director of Emergency Services.
T.13
4:25 look around here, there is sig. devastation here. It looks like the stuff you generally see on tv...you are looking at a gas station that is now just a hole in the ground, with blue tanks sticking up, that indicated it used to be a gas station...this is the job that's ahead of us.
Sfx: work crew
Chenney is hoping roads are passable by winter.
But completing repairs, or what he calls, making the dress neat could take up to two years.
Representative John Pratt says even given the time to restore the area, he's impressed with the state's response.
T.18
:41 ... I was here Sunday morning at 11 and I could not imagine we have made this kind of progress in 48 hours. It's just been incredible...I called and said we have to have communications things, it was on the road. I said you have to have a chopper here, b/c you have one lady who was on life support, and they had a chopper here. We asked for it, and we got it.
Again, Emergency Services Director Chenney.
T.13
5:30 the Department of Saftey, which is where I work, wanted to get out in front of this, and so starting with the governor and the Commissioner of Safety made it very plain, they didn't want Katrina-type problems. So we leaned way forward here.
Governor Lynch expects the state to continue leaning way forward.
But weather forecasts over the next few days vary widely...everything from drizzle to a three-day Noreastern.
And some worry if the rains do fall, hundreds of thousands of dollars in relief efforts could be washed away in a matter of minutes.
Governor Lynch says he isn't concerned.
T.18
3:55 we are not holding back at all. We are moving aggressively. We are not waiting on FEMA, we are not waiting on weather. We are gogin to move as aggressively as we can.
Lynch is expecting a FEMA team to arrive in the state later today.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
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