Tens of thousands of New Hampshire residents are spending some of the first weekend of spring in the dark after a messy storm brought snow and rain across New England Saturday.
As of 8:30 p.m., more than 39,000 customers in the Granite State were without power Saturday, according to the New Hampshire Department of Safety, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency management.
“Keep you and your family safe if you lose power,” said Robert Buxton, Director of the New Hampshire Department of Safety’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “Crews are out and working hard to restore outages as they happen. If you come across downed wires, stay away and call 911.”
Residents without power are asked to report outages to the following providers every 24 hours:
Eversource 1-800-662-7764
Liberty Utilities 1-855-349-9455
NH Electric Co-Op 1-800-343-6432
Unitil 1-888-301-7700
The New Hampshire Department of Safety also provided the following safety tips:
Stay informed by signing up for NH Alerts and monitoring National Weather Service radio or broadcast weather reports.
Use flashlights, rather than candles, for emergency lighting.
Do not use a gas range or oven as an alternate source of heat.
Never run a generator inside a building or in an enclosed space and keep them 20 feet away from buildings with the exhaust pointed away.
Winter weather advisories and flood watches were issued throughout New England by the National Weather Service.
Weekend storm bringing inches of rain into Mass, snow to northern New England
Several crashes also caused lane closures on I-93 Southbound in Thornton earlier in the afternoon.
Tina Morrill, Communications Specialist for Versant Power, offers safety tips for Mainers during the weekend storm.
“We always want to remind motorists that, as you are traveling on the roads, if you do approach a utility crew, slow down, move over if you can, to give them space to work safely to restore power to our customers,” Morrill stated.
Motorists are advised to never drive over or touch downed power lines – if you come across one, call Versant Power so they can safely handle the lines.