Mighty winds down trees, cut power to hundreds in area

LACONIA — Strong wind gusts downed trees and power lines across central New Hampshire and rest of the state Monday.

As of 1:30 p.m., hundreds of homes and businesses in the Lakes Region were without power. Statewide the number was around 23,000, according to Eversource, and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, the state’s two largest electric utilities.

Winds toppled trees and/or power lines in many communities, including Franklin, Gilmanton, Holderness, Moultonborough, New Hampton, and Sanbornton.

A wind gust of 40 mph was recorded at the Laconia Municipal Airport just before noon.

Eversource posted on its website that 590 customers were without power in Sanbornton, and 306 more in neighboring Franklin. In Gilford, 236 homes lost power when a large tree fell across Crestview Drive in Gunstock Acres and brought down utility lines, blocking the road.

As of 1:45 p.m. fire departments around the area had been dispatched to 73 locations after receiving reports of downed trees or utility wires, according to Paul Steele Jr., deputy coordinator for Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid. Most of the reports came in after 9 a.m., he said.

At mid-day the Co-op reported that 15,000 of its customers were without power, but the number was down to just under 13,000 by mid-afternoon, according to Co-op spokesman Seth Wheeler.

But with high winds expected to continue for the rest of the afternoon he said the public should be prepared for the likelihood that the outages could become more extensive later in the day.

“This will likely be a multi-day restoration effort,” Wheeler said.

Crews from outside the state were en route to assist in restoring power, he added. He said the utility would not be able to estimate the length of time it will take to make repairs in the 250 outage locations until it had a chance to more fully assess the damage.

Eversource estimated that power would not be restored to all the affected areas in its system until today at the earliest, company spokesman William Hinkle said. Additional crews were due to arrive Monday night, including additional Eversource crews from Massachusetts.

Hinkle noted the utility had managed to restore power to more than 85,000 customers since the strong winds began, including approximately 56,000 customers in fewer than five minutes using smart switches to isolate outages and reroute power from a back-up source.

As of 3:15 p.m., 16,379 customers remained without power statewide, he said.