Power is restored in much of the Northeast, hit by windy winter storm late last week

Power restored in much of storm-battered Northeast

CONCORD, N.H. — Many of the more than 1 million Northeastern homes and businesses plunged into the dark by a storm were running on electricity Monday, three days after the hard-hitting combination of snow, rain and hurricane-force winds.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch called restoration efforts “the most rapid” he’s ever seen after a storm. On Friday, at the height of the storm, 360,000 residential and business customers were without electricity — more than half the state. By Monday afternoon, the number was about 40,000.

The number of power outages in New Hampshire was second only to more than 400,000 reported in a massive ice storm in December 2008. Officials said better communication among utilities themselves and with local and state government officials was an important lesson from that storm.

“We saw this storm system coming probably five days in advance and we were concerned enough that we started booking crews,” said Carol Valianti, a vice president of Unitil, which completed power restoration to almost all of its 60,000 affected customers on Monday.

The utility brought in crews from Canada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in New England to help, she said.

The weather was mostly calm in New Hampshire on Monday, but blustery weather temporarily increased some outages in Maine and slowed restoration efforts. By afternoon, the number was back down to about 10,000 for Central Maine Power, the state’s largest utility, only about 1,000 fewer than what had been reported 12 hours earlier.

Still, John Carroll, utility spokesman, backed off a pledge to have power restored for everyone Monday night.

“This is clearly going to make it more difficult to reach our goal,” he said.

The weather played a role in a search-and-rescue operation at Maine’s Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort after four snowboarders left the ski area’s boundaries. More than 5 feet of snow that fell since Wednesday made it tough for both rescuers and snowboarders who spent the night on the mountain. Eventually, all four snowboarders were located.

Authorities in Massachusetts and Vermont said they had restored power to nearly all customers. New York state had the number of outages down to about 43,000 on Monday afternoon but said some of the hardest-hit areas wouldn’t have power back until Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Sharp in Portland, Maine; Chris Carola in Albany, N.Y.; Bob Salsberg in Boston; and Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.