Heavy storm knocks out power to thousands
By MIKE GREEAR Friday, June 10, 2011
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ROCHESTER — Lightning bolts were clearly visible throughout the skies over seacoast communities on Thursday after heavy storms moved into the area following a day of intense heat, knocking out power to thousands.
At 4:45 p.m., the New Hampshire Public Works Department was reporting power outages in Farmington, Rochester and New Durham. Areas of Durham and the south side of Dover had also temporarily lost power.
The Associated Press reported New Durham as one of several communities that was hit hardest during the storms, which brought heavy rains, damaging lightening, hail and strong winds.
Dover police said there were temporary power outages at several traffic intersections, but drivers were cautious and there were no accidents. The intersection of Chestnut and Washington Street lost power but was back on shortly after.
"We've had numerous alarms that have come in due to power loss," said Sgt. Bill Malsbury.
The Dover Fire Department received about eight calls during the storm, said Interim Chief Richard Driscoll. Officials reported spotted outages, some due to downed power wires.
"We had a tree down on Court Street," he said. "Firefighters were able to push it to the side and Arch Street had a large tree branch down on some wires."
In Somersworth, a tree hit by lighting caused power lines on Bridge Street to fall into the road as the tree itself fell onto a house and into a pool.
At 48 Eastman Ln. in Middleton, residents reported downed lines with sparking wires across the street from their house.
In Farmington, firefighters were sent to a house on Meaderborough Road where there were reports of a fire in the home's walls, according to an official at the department at 5:40 p.m.
Also around 5:40 p.m., members of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation reported moving a tree from Newington Road in Portsmouth.
Lt. Kevin Ruel from the New Durham fire department said that a generator fire at a house at 273 North Shore Rd. at 5:23 p.m. was near the area of an outage and downed power lines, and was likely caused by the storms. He added the rest of the department was responding to calls at that time.
Chief Rick Walker of the Barrington Fire Department said the department responded to a transformer being knocked down by a large tree on Stepping Stone Road.
"We're awaiting public service to come isolate the area," Walker said, adding there have been numerous other calls of tree limbs knocking down power lines in the town.
University of New Hampshire buildings were also victim to the storm, as Spokeswoman for the school Erika Mantz said there were power issues throughout the late afternoon.
"There was a lot of on and off and on and off," she said of the power.
According to reports from the Public Service of New Hampshire, power outages peaked at around 32,000 customers as of 7 p.m. Thursday.
That number had been reduced to about 11,000 by 11:30 p.m. Thursday, and a Public Service of New Hampshire official said while as of that time there was no estimate as to when power would be fully restored, crews would be working throughout the night.
At around 9 p.m., Unitil, which saw about 350 of its Seacoast customers lose power, activated its system-wide emergency operations centers in support of power restoration in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
A press release sent just after 4 p.m. from Seth Wheeler, communications administrator for the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, stated storms caused power to be lost to nearly 14,000 of its members.
"At this time, NHEC anticipates that power will not be restored to all members until Friday morning," Wheeler said in the report.
Cooler temperatures are expected for today.
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