Ice Storm in New Hampshire

Just a quick update on whats going on in NH with the Ice storm.

We are without power, and have been since about 10pm last night. Virtually the entire city is. PSNH is our power supplier in most of the state. The biggest storm they had on record resulted in 55,000 homes without power. That was the ice storm of 1998. Right now 380,000 homes are without power, most of the southern part of the state. They think that number will go up as the day goes on and the temp lowers tonight. Mass, VT, and ME are in similar situations. Basically this storm and its damage is without precedent.

Image from NH Public Radio flickr feed.

Jen and I are doing just fine. Since we have no power, we have no heat, internet, tv etc. Water for us works ok, though not so warm :-).

The one spot in Portsmouth that has power is part of downtown. So the couple coffee shops and restaurants are packed with people going to eat, stay warm and get wireless internet. We are at the club for now and its working out great. We have recharged the phones and are feeling pretty comfortable.

We are told it could be a couple days before power, though we feel pretty confident that the more urban areas like ours will get power sooner then the rural areas so hopefully that means sometime today.

We have a place or two (with friends) to stay tonight if we need, and all the cities have now set up emergency shelters. The only concern I have at this point is freezing pipes so I may need to find a creative solution to keep the basement at least a little warm should this last into tonight.

Anyway, cell phones still work, but email will be periodic for now.

Again, we are doing just fine so don't worry to much. Just a big adventure, and frankly we are hanging out at a fancy club all day so have it pretty darn good.

Merry Christmas!