An overnight ice storm kept emergency services and utility companies busy around the Upper Valley on Monday, with slide-offs and road incidents during the morning commute turning into road closures and downed power lines as the day went on.
Upper Valley residents woke up to more than half an inch of ice in some communities followed by a cold rain.
There were a “handful” of slide-offs in Enfield during the morning commute, Police Chief Roy Holland said.
The Enfield Police Department closed four roads in town Monday morning, all of which had been blocked by downed power lines, Holland said.
As of 1 p.m. Monday, a small portion of Route 4A in town had reopened and Holland said utility crews were in the area and would likely get Lockehaven, Potato and Blood Roads back open shortly.
A portion of Academy Road in Thetford was closed for about more than two hours Monday morning after power lines came down in the roadway, according to a post from the Thetford Volunteer Fire Department.
In Newport, Police Chief Alex Lee said there had similarly been “a variety of cars off the roads and spinoffs” but “nothing serious” and no injuries.
Cross Road, a short span between Maple Street and Sunapee Street in Newport, was closed around 10:15 a.m. after a tractor trailer couldn’t make it up the hill and jackknifed on the 0.2 mile long road.
Lee said the road was cleared by 11 a.m. and there were no injuries and no other road closures in town as of midday Monday. There were, he said, a lot of homes in Newport without power.
Utility companies reported widespread outages Monday. Findenergy.com, an organization that tracks energy usage data reported that 13.9% of people in Sullivan County and 2.66% of people in Grafton County were without power as of 1 p.m. Monday.
Some of the largest outages were concentrated around Grantham, where one Eversource outage left 1,725 people without power starting at 10 a.m. Monday. In Randolph, an outage on Route 66 left almost 300 people without power Monday morning, according to Green Mountain Power Company.
The New Hampshire Electric Coop reported 4,600 people without power statewide as of 12:30 Monday, and expected that there would be delays to power being restored.
“This ice storm has caused a significant number of outages,” New Hampshire Electric Coop wrote online Monday. “While our crews are working across our service area to restore power, hazardous driving conditions are making it difficult to access impacted areas, slowing our restoration efforts. Crews will continue to work throughout the day, but given the conditions it may take some time to restore power.”
Following the ice storm, the National Weather Service predicted that winds gusting up to 35 miles per hour Monday afternoon would increase the chance of power outages.
The power outage risk was also expected to continue through Monday night in areas with ice accumulated on trees.
Green Mountain Power Company had already restored power to more than 8,200 customers as of midday Monday and were gearing up for any further disruptions, Communications Director Kristin Kelly said in a statement Monday.
As of 1 p.m. Monday, there were about 1,000 customers statewide without power.
“Our field operations team tracks multiple forecasts for days in advance to prepare for potentially damaging weather, and in addition to our GMP team, we also had external crews here in advance of the storm to be available to assist our crews as needed as this weather continues,” Kelly said.
Business and service closures also made an impact across the Twin States.
Morning bus routes were hit particularly hard. In Lebanon, Advance Transit reduced the frequency of service on the blue, red, green and orange/yellow routes because of icy road conditions, according to a social media post. These routes serve Lebanon, Hanover, Wilder, White River Junction including the VA Hospital and West Lebanon.
Southwestern Community Services also canceled the bus route that runs from Claremont to Lebanon on Monday.
On school vacation week, the inhospitable weather disrupted some popular venues.
Whaleback Mountain was closed Monday and scheduled to reopen at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. All group classes at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center were also canceled Monday and Lebanon’s Carter Community Building Association closed at midday.
Public libraries around the Twin States shuttered or scheduled delayed openings, including in Lebanon, Woodstock, Hanover and Sunapee.