March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Storm continues to take its toll on Northeastern states, Canada

National Guardsmen flew over rural areas of the Northeast on Sunday, looking for families isolated without power or food since last week’s ice storm, and temperatures threatened to drop below zero during the night.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses still had no electricity across northern sections of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

New Hampshire alone had more than 500 utility line crews from as far away as Delaware busy cutting through downed trees to get at broken utility poles and drooping lines. They were helped by National Guardsmen.

“In one area, in order to connect just two customers, we had to restore about 2 miles of wires and several poles,” said Martin Murray, spokesman for Public Service Co. of New Hampshire. “It’s very time-consuming and tedious.”

Last week’s huge storm caused floods across the South and spread thick, clinging ice across the Northeast and the eastern third of Canada. Eleven deaths were blamed on the storm in Canada, and one in New York. Seven deaths were counted in Tennessee flooding plus two in North Carolina and one in South Carolina.

Guard helicopters were sent flying across a 7,000-square-mile area of northern New York to search for people isolated and in their fourth day without electricity.

By midday, the helicopter crews had rescued 16 people.

As people were urged to go to public shelters because of the below-zero temperatures forecast by Monday morning, hospitals in some areas treated people for exposure to carbon monoxide gas produced by home generators, charcoal grills and propane heaters.

Utilities estimated 30,000 still had no electricity Sunday in New Hampshire, and 9,600 in Vermont were blacked out. New York utilities estimated about 500,000 people were without power.

Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. said it could be four weeks before it restores service to everyone.

Three truck-sized portable generators had been hooked up in Clinton County, N.Y., to run farmers’ automated milking systems. Dairy cows that aren’t milked for days at a time can become sick and die.

Even with the generators, the farmers had to dump the milk, because county roads were still impassable to dairy trucks.

“The farmers are having to dump their milk on the ground and are losing thousands of dollars,” said Bill Bingel, Clinton County administrator.


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