Any info on power failure
 

According to the WMUR web site it says power was restored by 11 PM except for 450 in Farmington.

Alton area power failure....
 

Here's all the details in this morning's electronic edition of the UNION LEADER.

8,000 customers affected!
 

According to today's Citizen it was quite a large outage, and as many as 8,000 customers were affected! Click here to read the article: http://www.wmur.com/news/11197410/detail.html

On a day and night as cold as yesterday and last evening, it could be disasterous to be without power. :eek: I sure hope everyone found ways to stay warm!

From WMUR's website
ALTON, N.H. -- Nearly 8,000 Granite Staters spent a cold evening without power on Wednesday.

New Hampshire Electric Coop said that customers in the areas around Alton and New Durham lost power in the early evening due to a transmission problem.

It was restored, but then after 7 p.m., power went out again.

The second outage effected approximately 7,500 customers in Alton, Farmington, Milton, Belmont, Gilmanton, and New Durham.

Another 450 customers in Lyme also experienced a loss of power.

As of 11 p.m., power had been restored to all customers except 450 in Farmington.

The power lines in that area are maintained by Public Service of New Hampshire.

A spokesperson with PSNH said that the problems could be traced back to a failure at the substation in Milton. A small fire had been reported there.

During the time of the outages the temperature was hovering at around 0 degrees in the affected areas.

Power Outage
 

Witnessed first-hand
 

While driving east on Rt 11 through Alton last night I first noticed the power outage while driving through the town square area. I was on a trip to Dover and the outage continued along Rt. 11 until I got to Lilac City Pediatrics (just north of Wal-Mart) in the northern part of Rochester. There are a couple of areas along that road that provide a pretty good view to the east and I didn't see any lights in those views.

Just north of Lilac City Pediatrics they had a traffic pattern shift with hundreds of orange cones, about 10 or 12 electrical trucks working, and a handful of cop cars. Interestingly enough, they weren't at any of the typically dangerous intersections which were without working traffic lights.

On sleeping with socks on: I heard somewhere that it's good to do that anyway.. it's supposed to help you sleep better by improving circulation.

Last year I invested in a Kohler whole-house standby generator. Last night was the first time it kicked on at my house in Alton when the power went out around 7:00 pm. It was great to watch tv, get in my hot tub and have the lights on while the rest of the area was in the dark. I used a company called Powers Generator http://www.standby-generators.com/ to install the generator. They also offer service 24/7, which was the reason I went with them.

We were eating dinner at Johnson's last night when the power went out. The funny thing is, years ago when it was the New Durham Railway Station, the power went out when were were dining there. I have never been in a restaurant when the power went out except for these two times ...in the same place! What were the odds??

Anyway, we started home to Alton in pitch black, and were very pleased to see that on the west side of Rt 28 the lights were on....but that only lasted about 20 minutes or so..then black out. The outdoor thermometer read 13 BELOW!
Brrr...fortunately we had cranked up the heat before leaving for dinner.
What did the pioneers do with no lights ??? I bet they had lots of kids. :emb:

Thank goodness for cell phone alarm clocks!