RYE, N.H. (AP) – The air conditioners are back on in most of the 8,500 Seacoast homes and businesses that lost power from a summer storm.
The storm also toppled power lines and trees.
Downed trees damaged about 20 mobile homes in a park in North Hampton after a lightning storm.
“I was amazed that no one was hurt,” Fire Deputy Corey Landry told the Portsmouth Herald.
Sections of Rye were blocked off by fallen trees Thursday morning. Lighting caused several house fires in Portsmouth, Newmarket and North Hampton. Fallen wires and tree limbs also blocked roads in Exeter, Hampton and Newington, police said.
Unitil Corp. had restored power to 4,000 customers in Hampton, Exeter and Stratham by 10 a.m. Thursday. As of Thursday night, Public Service of New Hampshire said about 1,800 customers still had no electricity.
“It’s a slow arduous process to remove all the debris,” said Public Service spokeswoman Mary-Jo Boisvert. “We had 18 broken poles. Fourteen were in Rye and four were in North Hampton.”
Officials said that power might not be restored to everyone until Friday.
“We’ve been working through the night with our own crews,” Boisvert said. “We brought in tree-trimming crews. We brought in contractor crews. It’s very slow progress at this point, trying to clear out the trees and the downed poles so that we can then reset the poles and restring the wires.”
Several hundred other outages were reported around Manchester, Nashua and Newport.
In Greenland, a state trooper was injured when he was hit by a car while helping remove a fallen tree from Interstate 95.
A car rear-ended a parked cruiser around 8:30 p.m., sending the car out of control and into a group of troopers who were directing traffic and trying to remove the tree, police said. Sgt. James White was knocked off the road into trees along the highway.
The car driver, William Dillion, 83, of Waltham, Mass., and his passenger, were not injured.
One home in Newmarket was struck twice by lightening Wednesday night.
Stephen Miller said he was in a room near the garage when he heard the first strike about 6 p.m. A second bolt struck seconds later.
“It felt like I had a heart attack,” said Miller.
He looked out a window and saw steam rising from the house, at first assuming it was a clothes dryer. He investigated and saw black smoke billowing from the house.
“That’s when I knew it was bad,” Miller said.
Newmarket Fire Chief Rick Malasky said one bolt of lightning struck a tree in the home’s front yard, sending the upper portion of the tree crashing into the Miller’s yard and transferring the jolt of electricity through a power line to the house.
The fire was quickly contained.
AP-ES-08-03-06 1953EDT
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