With the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 ice storm fresh on people's minds, Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) customers are taking steps to prepare for the winter season.
In a recent survey of 400 PSNH customers conducted by Lombardo Consulting Group, the severity of the unprecedented December 2008 ice storm remains top of mind. Survey results indicate that 95 percent of PSNH customers view the December 2008 ice storm as severe and likely one of the worst storms ever, and more than 50 percent have taken steps to prepare for future storms as a result. The most popular steps taken by PSNH customers include purchasing a generator, creating a home emergency kit, and creating a home emergency plan.
"This unprecedented storm tested New Hampshire's resources, and it reaffirmed the strength of our spirit," said Gary Long, PSNH president and chief operating officer. "Under the worst of conditions, the people of New Hampshire came together to respond to this natural disaster with resourcefulness, resiliency, and compassion. This survey shows that our customers are continuing to respond to this event by working toward a better state of preparedness for their families and businesses - which is exactly what we would recommend."
Public Supports Tree Trimming
In addition to taking steps to improve their own preparedness, nearly 70 percent of survey respondents indicated support for giving utilities more leeway to trim or cut trees on private property that might interfere with power lines during a storm. Approximately 86 percent of the troubles on PSNH's electric system in the 2008 ice storm were caused by downed trees and branches.
While ice and snow storms are common in the Granite State, no other storm in PSNH's 82-year history has come close to inflicting the sheer enormity of damage caused by the December 2008 ice storm. At peak, more than 322,000 PSNH customers were without power. By way of comparison, PSNH's prior "worst storm of all time" had caused fewer than 95,000 outages.
High Marks for PSNH's Response
Despite the extended power outages caused by the storm, PSNH customers overwhelmingly expressed a high level of satisfaction with PSNH's restoration effort, with 78 percent of survey respondents indicating they were satisfied with how PSNH responded generally to outages in New Hampshire.
"I cannot say enough how proud I am of PSNH employees and the State of New Hampshire for the heroic efforts put forth in response to this devastating natural disaster," said Long. "When you consider everything we were up against - impassable roads, nor'easters, incredibly long hours, and more than half of PSNH's electric circuits out of service - it's astounding to think that we were able to restore power to 99.9 percent of our customers by Christmas Eve. The heart that PSNH employees put into this effort exceeded anything we could have hoped for or asked of them."
In response to the December 2008 ice storm, PSNH called in more than 1,000 mutual aid crews - in addition to PSNH's 99 bucket crews and 70 tree-trimming crews - to help with the restoration effort. PSNH's utility crews replaced more than 780 damaged utility poles and 1,300 transformers, installed more than 13,600 fuses, and restrung 105 miles of power cable during the 13-day restoration effort.
PSNH's response to the December 2008 ice storm has been recognized nationally by the Edison Electric Institute's prestigious Emergency Response Award, and the Chartwell Inc. Best Practices Award for Outage Communications. PSNH has also received numerous recognition awards from southern New Hampshire communities for its exceptional response to this natural disaster.
To view data from the recent survey of 400 PSNH customers, visit psnhnews.com.