WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Thousands of Upper Valley residents in Vermont awoke on Monday to a third consecutive day without electricity, as utility crews for Green Mountain Power continued to tackle downed power lines and fallen trees in Windsor and Orange counties.
As of 2:30 p.m., over 3,500 homes or businesses in Upper Valley communities were still in the dark due to power outages that resulted from the weekend’s Nor’easter.
An accumulation of wet, heavy snow through the Friday weighed down trees and cracked limbs, resulting in widespread power outages across Vermont and New Hampshire.
While outages in New Hampshire had been almost entirely restored by Monday morning, Vermont’s Green Mountain Power was still tending to over 8,200 customer outages as of 10:30 a.m.
Over 5,000 of those outages were in the Upper Valley, with the highest numbers in Hartford, Hartland, Norwich and Thetford.
“That (region) is where the weather system hit the hardest,” said Kristin Carlson, chief energy services executive at Green Mountain Power.
According to the National Weather Service, many towns in Windsor and Orange counties accumulated between 16 to 20 inches of snow, several inches more on average than most Vermont counties.
“Wet, heavy snow is like cement” in terms of density and mass, Carlson said. In addition to the strain of its weight on trees and utility lines, such storms “create a number of dangerous conditions in the field for utility workers,” as well as impediments on the travel routes.
Since Friday Green Mountain Power has restored power to over 105,000 customers, Carlson said.
The utility, which tracked the storm several days in advance, brought in crews from other states, including Massachusetts, New York, California and Maine, increasing its workers in the field by 300%. The workforce includes over 450 line workers, over 150 tree workers and 300 support staff.
As of 4 p.m. on Monday, over 60% of Green Mountain Power’s outages were in the towns of Hartland, Hartford and Norwich, Thetford and Sharon.
The utility company stated online that most customers in these communities will have power restored “by late Tuesday night,” though Carlson said that most of these remaining outages are likely to be restored sooner.
Several towns, including Woodstock, Thetford and Randolph, opened warming stations on Sunday for area residents to get out of the cold or charge their phones or devices.
Lisa Linton, an emergency services dispatcher in Woodstock, said that four residents visited the Woodstock Fire Department warming station on Sunday. The station also remained open on Monday, though there had been no visitors as of 11 a.m.
Mariah Whitcomb, Emergency Management director in Thetford, said their town hall also served on Sunday as a warming station though “it was not highly used by the community.”
Most residents who called the town office wanted to know when their power might be restored, as opposed to requests for assistance, Whitcomb said, through the fire department received many emergency calls between Friday night and Saturday evening, including medical calls, motor vehicle accidents and reports of downed power lines.
The milder temperatures over the weekend, which averaged in the high 20s and low 30s on Saturday around the Upper Valley, might have reduced the need of residents to seek a shelter, said Mark Bosma of Vermont Emergency Management, a state office that assists communities to ensure public safety during emergency situations.
“I’ve often found that, during the first couple of days (of a prolonged outage) people will usually tough it out (at home),” Bosma told the Valley News. “By day three or four, people are often looking to wash up or to use their phone.”
Most towns during a winter outage will provide a warming shelter at their town hall or a police or fire station, Bosma said.
If an individual is uncertain of a shelter location and lacks internet or phone connectivity, they may need to travel to a location where they can make a phone call, provided that the driving conditions are safe for travel.
Vermont safety officials also warn residents using generators to power their homes during an outage to monitor carbon monoxide levels. In addition to only placing generators outside, residents should ensure their external vents are clear of snow.
Patrick Adrian can be reached at padrian@vnews.com or at 603-727-3216.