Thousands Without Power in Concord, Accidents Abound

UPDATE, 10:38 p.m. Power has been restored to all but about 100 households in Concord, Salisbury, and Webster. 

UPDATE, 10:21 p.m. Unitil is reporting that estimated restoration times for the rest of Concord, about 1,200 households, will be in the 12:30 to 2:30 a.m. range. Boscawen has about 150 households out. The company hopes to have homes back on between 11:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. There are 50 other homes without power spread throughout Canterbury, Salisbury, and Webster. Those homes should be back on between 11:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. 

UPDATE, 10:04 p.m. Unitil outages dropped down to about 1,400, mostly in Concord, with communities north of the city mostly restored. PSNH is reporting more communities without power, including Andover, Dunbarton, Hopkinton, Franklin, New London, Salisbury, and Sutton. 

Concord’s main utility company is reporting that thousands of people are without tonight has a winter storm moved into the area, changing initially from freezing rain to heavy snow.

At around 7 p.m., Unitil reported more than 2,600 households were without power in Concord, mainly in the Penacook area and northern parts of the city. Other communities, like Boscawen, Canterbury, Salisbury, and Webster, were also reporting outages. No reason was given for the power outage but electricity has been flickering a number of times during the last few hours.

About an hour later, the number of households without power rose to 2,697.

Public Service of New Hampshire reported thousands without power as well. About 1,200 households were without power in Francestown, New Boston, and Weare, and 600 households were without power in Bradford, Newbury, Sunapee, and Warner at post time. 

The roads around the city were also reportedly very slippery between 7:30 and 8 p.m. with New Hampshire State Police and Concord Police reporting a number of accidents and vehicles off the road, with few personal injuries. 

An accident was reported on I-89 north, near Exit 2 while a Ford Mustang reportedly drove off the road into an embankment in the eastern part of the city, striking a road sign. 

Concord NH Patch will update this post when more information becomes available.