It’s a bit of both. Nhs power grid is very old and very cheaply made, add to that power companies that don’t cut back trees and brush as often as they should and you get a power grid that goes out often during storms

Trees

>chased away a tree crew with a chainsaw because he didn't want them cutting trees along the road in front of his property.

Those were rhododendrons and it was the road agent who got chased, but yes.

Wolfeboro is pretty nice

You have no idea what they do with their money.

Absolutely, and the fact that much of the ground is bedrock or extremely rocky so it's hard to dig and lay cables in.

Isn’t vt still a lot more open space with farms compared to nh?

Granite state. There’s a lot of boulders lining those roads. And stone walls that come right up to the road. Those are historic you can’t touch so….

Trees. Our last outage was the ice storm of 2011. It's been fine since then when they upgraded the grid. We are near a main road and we have underground wiring. That's a good combination for avoiding power outages.

I don’t know about other towns but mine had labeled some roads “historic scenic”. Most of the road has to be lined with trees. Setback before you can have open space is significant. Blah blah blah. The utility does come through to trim, but they send out notices before hand that you have to respond to: yes I’m ok with you trimming trees on my property line, and whether you want the trimmed branches or they can dispose of them.

A lot of people either ignore or forget to send those back, or want that scenery!

So. Lines come down.

Also, got to remember we are a lot more forested than we were 70-80 years ago. My dad used to watch the fireworks in Nashua from the top of the ridge on the family property in north Hollis in the 50s. A lot of what you see lining the roads is new growth and it’s all pine. Those keep their needles in winter so a lot more real estate for wet snow and ice too cling to and bring those limbs down.

I think you’ll find areas where there is still field lining the roads have a lot less downed lines.

PSNH was even worse than the current Eversource. They only sent out cutting crews after irate citizens lit up their elected officials.

Brief acquaintances

Epping (Rockingham County) - China Jade

Hillsborough County, Manchester, Bonsai

Good food, and for every $10 you spend you get a stamp on rewards card that you get a $10 gift certificate to the restaurant for 10 stamps. There are no restrictions and are very easy going.

There menu also has American food.

Says the guy who set an alarm to come back and reply to me. Tool bag lol

It seems to be concentrated in the South, where most people live, which makes sense. Fewer power line to lose up north.

Anyone have stats on which providers have the most outages over the years? When I lived in NH Co Op land we rarely lost power. They trim branches year round. Only in major outages. Now I live in Eversource land. We’ve been lucky but I rarely see them trimming branches.

Szechuan Taste in Exeter. Great priced lunch specials and the best homemade mustard I've had.

I was here thinking “Is the 85% forested state not enough for you?”

While penny-pinching utilities who don't want to spend money on maintenance are much of the problem, we residents have to take some of the blame - any time there's tree-trimming around lines people complain bitterly about it.

There was a court case 25+ years ago when a guy - I believe it was one of the founders of Sanders Associates but I might be remembering that wrong - chased away a tree crew with a chainsaw because he didn't want them cutting trees along the road in front of his property.

[deleted]

[deleted]

This will be unpopular. I too appreciate them. However they do get paid extremely well. It is their choosen job. An important one but I doubt many of them are altruistic, they're making bank, at least the linemen I knew. I think we just tend to feel extremely grateful when the power(that we pay through the nose for) is turned back on (so the energy industry can bank record profits) and we translate the joy of heat and electric to the "saintly" guys on the pole. Might as well revere the dps plow guy or the kid who goes to work in the grocery store in a snow storm. It's not about service or kindness, it's about the money.

Now, a decent soldier, they have more of a possibility of being altruistic and don't get paid great. I tend to be more grateful for occupations like teachers, nurses, good public servants, etc. I would like to live in a world where these type occupations are highly rewarded as opposed to Hollywood types and pro athletes.

Sources: retired US Army Senior NCO : grumpy old NH guy.

Have a nice day.

Our power company maintains their power lines instead of waiting for disasters.

Lincoln, NH

We used to lose power many times every winter. About ten years ago, my town made a concerted effort to trim or remove trees and branches near power lines; we've since had maybe 20% as many outages as before.