Update, 9:30 a.m. Tuesday: Utilities repaired all major outages overnight, leaving only about 150 across the state Tuesday morning. There are no weather advisories in effect for New Hampshire at this time.
Original story, 4:30 p.m. Monday:
Gusty winds caused several thousand power outages across New Hampshire Monday, but utilities say they're prepared for any impacts to polling places on Election Day Tuesday.
More than 5,000 Eversource customers and about a thousand New Hampshire Electric Cooperative customers were without power as of 4:30 p.m. Monday.
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Co-op spokesman Seth Wheeler said crews should be able to repair most of the damage overnight, after the winds die down.
He said any outages remaining in the morning will likely affect more rural homes, away from town centers where voting takes place.
Eversource spokeswoman Kaitlyn Woods said they expect some winds and potential outages will continue tomorrow morning, and they've been in touch with polling places to make sure voting will be able to continue.
“We’ve been preparing with a focus on Election Day,” she said. “We want to ensure that everything goes as smoothly as possible tomorrow.”
She said Eversource has asked all polling places in its service area whether they have generators in case of outages. Eversource will offer back-up generators for voting centers that need them.
Woods said Eversource has also flagged all the polling places it serves in its management system so they’ll know immediately if any lose power on Tuesday.
The technology that lets them do that is new, Woods said, so this is the first election where it's been used. She said Eversource staff didn't recall any other recent elections that coincided with weather like Monday's.
A wind advisory from the National Weather Service expires at 7 p.m. Monday. Some wind gusts, though not as strong as today’s, are in the forecast Tuesday.
