PSNH Says Storm Cleanup Slow But Ongoing

By Dan Gorenstein on Monday, December 15, 2008.

As of early this morning people in at least 179 cities and towns are still waiting to get their power back on.

New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.

As of 5 o'clock this morning, PSNH, the state's largest utility, has 138 thousand customers without power, including 16 thousand in Nashua, 7500 in Derry, 7000 in Manchester and 4000 in Rochester.

PSNH spokesperson Martin Murray says there still may be whole communities that don't have electricity.

"What we are hearing from the field is that when we get further into some of these areas that we haven't been able to get into, the devastation that is seen has been incredible."

Murray says cleanup can be slow because it may take one or two work crews a few hours to restore power to just one home.

The company says it is still looking for additional help outside the region.

Last week's ice storm knocked out power for 1.4 million people in the Northeast.

For NHPR News, I'm Dan Gorenstein.