News

Statewide power outages near 100K as tornado warnings expire

By Jordan J. Phelan
[email protected]
Heavy rainfall, strong thunderstorms and scattered power outages continued to mount across New Hampshire and Vermont into the evening on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Isaias prompted multiple tornado warnings throughout New England.

According to data made available by electric providers EverSource, Liberty Utilities, New Hampshire Electric Co-Op and Unitil, there were more than 95,000 customers across New Hampshire without power as of Tuesday evening. Hillsborough County experienced the most power outages with 17,799 while Carroll County had the largest percentage of customers without power at 26.6%.

Belknap County: 7,600 customers without power.

Carroll County: 11,558 customers without power.

Cheshire County: 9,324 customers without power.

Coos County: 2,276 customers without power.

Grafton County: 13,277 customers without power.

Hillsborough County: 17,799 customers without power.

Merrimack County: 9,664 customers without power.

Rockingham County: 8,712 customers without power.

Strafford County: 10,471 customers without power.

Sullivan County: 6,077 customers without power.

Area police and fire departments closed multiple roadways due to down trees and wires and urged people to seek shelter, if possible, during the height of the storm.

The Claremont Fire Department responded to reports of a tree that had severed electrical wires on Sullivan Street. First responders promptly closed the road to traffic and contacted EverSource.

In Goshen, fire officials ran into a similar situation when a large tree fell onto remote feeder lines which, according to Fire Chief Dan Peterson, may have been “one of many incidents impacting the Power Grid and numerous towns in the area.”

Residents in Cheshire, Hillsborough and Sullivan Counties were also constantly being updated with alerts on their phones about tornado warnings as a result of rotation being identified on radar.

The initial tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service for counties in western New Hampshire, eastern Vermont and western Massachusetts appeared around 9 a.m. and ended 30 minutes later. This would be followed by three additional warnings, predominantly for Cheshire and Sullivan Counties and the municipalities of Acworth, Antrim, Claremont, Cornish, Goshen, Lempster, Marlow, Newbury, Newport, Stoddard, Sunapee, Unity and Washington.

As of Tuesday evening there has been no official report of a tornado in New Hampshire.

A tropical storm warning is still in place for the surrounding area until further notice.

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