Thousands without power during hottest day of heat wave

A massive power outage in the Lakes Region on Thursday — the hottest day of the recent heat wave — is attributed to a fallen tree on an Eversource line in Center Harbor.

“The cause of the power outage in the Lakes Region on Thursday was a tree that fell onto our distribution electric system that serves the NH Electric Co-Op,” Kaitlyn Woods, external communications manager for Eversource Energy, wrote in an email on Monday.

Woods said the tree fell onto power lines off Piper Hill Road, on the afternoon of July 2, and started a small brush fire. Photos she provided show smoke coming from the area. Woods said while NHEC was the only Eversource customer impacted, many more NHEC customers served by that line were affected.

“Our team worked as quickly and safely as possible to locate the outage in our power line corridor by helicopter and crews patrolling on foot, then clear the tree, repair damage and restore power,” Woods said.

At about 1:20 p.m. on Friday, a mobile substation made its way down Route 104 toward Meredith, escorted by State Police. Woods said the mobile unit was taken to White Lake Substation, in Tamworth, to help “ensure reliable power,” as final repairs were completed.

“We brought in the mobile substation to serve as a backup source of power for the NHEC substation at Meredith and Center Harbor,” Woods said.

Center Harbor Fire Chief Tyler Driscoll said, much like other communities without power, outages started at 2 p.m., and lasted until about 10 p.m. 

Driscoll said, from his standpoint, they heard about a line that dropped, causing a “very small, manageable fire.”

“With that said, we were worried, and treated it as a major issue,” Driscoll said, noting it was not only humid and wet, but electricity was a major concern. “We had to wait for the wires to be turned off.”

Center Harbor Fire contacted Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid, and Driscoll said firefighters were at the scene for “four to five hours.”

He said the fire was small, but it did burn very deep into the ground, due to the high heat. He related it to digging through wood ash. He said it was challenging, because of the hot weather, but also the terrain, as it was mainly only accessible by off-road vehicles.

Driscoll praised the work of Eversource and NHEC, saying they handled it “professionally, promptly and safely.” He acknowledged how difficult it can be during a power outage in the summer, and thanked the public for their patience.

“Eight hours in a heat wave without power isn’t fun,” Driscoll said.

Colin Manning, spokesperson for NHEC, said at one point, there were 10,000 customers without power. He said the outage started around 2 p.m., and customers got their power back on temporarily, but lost it again.

“The main issue was that it wasn’t our line, but the transmission provider’s line, and we sent crews to help our provider,” Manning said, noting the most affected areas were in the northern Lakes Region towns of Center Harbor, Meredith and Moultonborough.

At 8 p.m. on Thursday, the NHEC outage map showed there were still 7,022 customers without power. Meredith had the most, with 3,586, and there were 1,334 affected customers in Moultonborough.

Meredith Town Manager Judie Milner, who was not at her office on July 2, authorized the closing of town offices due to the outage, saying the Town Hall and annex closed at 3 p.m.

“Because of the outage, which NHEC did not expect to rectify until 6:30 that night, they did not have access to the computer network, internet or phones, all of which are necessary to complete tasks and to serve our customers,” Milner said. “I hear it was getting really warm in both buildings as well. I think the power had been out for an hour prior to closing.”

Meredith Police Lt. Phil McLaughlin said a short power outage occurred at 2:04 p.m., which was followed by a number of alarms and calls typical for power going out. The power came back on briefly, then went out again between 3:24 and 10:05 p.m.

“The biggest problem we had were the lights at the intersection of 3 and 25 were without power, and we had officers directing traffic for those seven hours,” McLaughlin said. “Given it was 90, it was difficult.”

McLaughlin praised the community's patience, and said the officers directing traffic appreciated people dropping off water. He said two officers were at the intersection directing traffic, switching off because of the intense heat.

McLaughlin said the department has a generator that kicked right on, so there were no issues there, and they didn’t have any calls for medical wellness checks. The main issue, he said, was managing the traffic. While the power outage forced restaurants and other establishments to close, McLaughlin said the only saving grace was it led fewer people to the area, which helped with the failed traffic lights.

Parks & Recreation Director Krystal Alpers said the Meredith Community Center has a generator, causing no disruptions to their summer camp, but the building did get pretty warm.

She noted that regardless of the power issue, there were already air conditioning problems, but the power going out didn’t help.

Police Chief Michael Harper went to the community center on Thursday, to ask about using it as a cooling location, but since summer camp activities were taking place that day, they decided to use to Meredith Public Library instead. The power outage eliminated that plan. Alpers said three people used the community center until it closed on Thursday evening, because it was cooler than their home.

The summer camp ran until 5:30 p.m. Evening pickleball classes were cancelled.

Power was back up and running on Friday, for the Meredith Community Center to serve as a cooling location from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., as summer camp programs were not scheduled.

The outage map also included 841 customers without power in Center Harbor, 737 customers in Sandwich, 270 customers in Holderness, 87 customers in Gilford, and 32 customers in New Hampton.

Alton Police Chief Adam Painchaud said there were outages in Alton. “That was a mess.”

“Pretty much the whole town was out for a period of time,” Painchaud said.

Painchaud said most customers had power back in about an hour, but others experienced sporadic outages the rest of the day.

“It was definitely an issue,” Painchaud said.

Painchaud said they had a cooling shelter set up at the Alton Community Center, with air conditioning and a backup generator, but it was not widely used. He said even while it was a short-lived power outage in Alton, it was tough timing in a heat wave. He thanked the utility workers.

“They did work quickly to get everyone back on, fortunately.”