Eversource said it will take until 6 p.m. Friday to restore power to nearly all of its customers in New Hampshire after a nor’easter dropped up to three feet of snow in parts of southwest New Hampshire.
The majority of 33,000 Eversource customers still without power early Wednesday evening will be restored sooner, the company announced Wednesday.
Eversource said its remote system operators and line workers have addressed more than 172,000 outages, including some customers more than once.
“With upwards of three feet of snow that in spots that is like ‘gorilla glue’ on the road and more than 210 blocked roads statewide, our crews have been dealing with extremely difficult travel conditions to access areas of the electric system where there is damage,” Eversource New Hampshire President of Electric Operations Doug Foley said in a statement.
Between all utilities in the state, nearly 34,000 were without power as of Wednesday evening. Strong winds on Wednesday continued to cause outages.
Meanwhile, the NH SportsDome in Goffstown sustained a large rip and deflated overnight, which authorities believe was related to the snowstorm.
“It wasn’t really a collapse,” said Fire Chief Shawn Murray. “It was more of a deflation.”
The dome, with a 72-foot roof at its center, sustained a 20- to 30-square-foot tear in a seam in its skin, said Murray, who estimated his town received at least 18 inches of snow.
Before the deflation, employees running the facility, which hosts sports teams and other events, “put more air into it, hoping the snow would slide off of it, and they turned up the heat in the building hoping that it would melt,” Murray said.
“There is quite a large area that’s opened,” the chief said.
Peterborough recorded 35 inches of snow, followed by Greenville with 33, according to National Weather Service spotters. Other totals included 19 inches in Derry and 9.9 at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
High temperatures in many areas are expected to be in the mid-40s Thursday through Saturday.
Flights resumed at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on Wednesday after early-morning flights were scratched. FlightAware reported eight cancellations.
Police and fire crews were busy across the state Tuesday.
“Throughout the day, troopers responded to more than 200 crashes and vehicles off the road,” state police tweeted Tuesday evening.
