More than 80% of outages restored – Town by town estimates now available

MANCHESTER, N.H., November 29, 2014 10:30 AM –The vast majority of PSNH customers who lost power in this week’s snowstorm are now restored.  Those who are still without power can now check the estimated time of restoration for their town on our website.  As of this morning, there were fewer than 40,000 customers still affected, down from a peak of about 207,000 on Thursday.  Many communities will be fully restored today and tomorrow.

“We continue to make excellent progress towards substantially restoring our system by Monday,” said William Quinlan, President and COO of PSNH. “We are now pleased to release restoration estimates for each of the 211 communities that we serve.”The focus today is shifting to restoring smaller and isolated outages, with service crews in the field to repair damage to individual customers.More than 1,100 PSNH and contractor line workers and about 500 tree clearing specialists are in the field with additional assistance arriving this morning.  Work will continue around the clock until all customers are restored.A computer problem that caused the temporary suspension of our popular online outage map tool has been repaired and the feature is back up and running.  Customers can also sign up for text messages through our website to receive information about the estimated time of restoration for their town.Safety Tips –
-Customers should never touch a downed wire and should assume any downed line is live and dangerous. Be aware that downed wires could also be buried in the snow. Downed lines should be reported to PSNH immediately at 1-800-662-7764

-Customers using generators should make sure they are installed safely for their own safety, as well as that of line workers. A generator should only be set up outside and a safe distance from the house, wired directly to the house, and completely isolated from the utility supply. Otherwise, generator power could feed into the PSNH electrical system, causing unsafe conditions for line workers and neighbors. For more safety tips, visit www.psnh.com/stormsafety.

If a customer loses power, it’s important to report the outage to PSNH by calling 1-800-662-7764 or through our website. Customers can also sign up for text message alerts via the power outages page of our website. Photos of storm damage can be found on our Flickr page.