It's all about communication.
That was the biggest lesson learned from the ice storm that crippled southern New Hampshire and the Merrimack Valley a year ago, said community leaders and officials with power companies serving the region.
Information must be funneled to emergency management officers, utility companies and residents through a variety of technologies, both new and old — basically whatever works, officials said.
That theme is echoed by officials who have studied their response to the massive, ice-triggered power failure.
Better communication through more social networking Web sites, more print means and more face-to-face discussion will help firefighters and utility workers target their response more effectively and meet the most critical needs, the officials said.
They said that will give residents whose homes have lost power more accurate information sooner about when their electricity is likely to be restored and the do's and don't's of things like generator use and cooking inside with charcoal.
Far from a common event
It's important to remember the huge scale of utility damage inflicted by the ice storm of 2008, government and utility officials said.
It was historic.
Power failures impacted two-thirds of the population of New Hampshire, said Jim Van Dongen, spokesman for the Granite State's Office of Emergency Management. About 420,000 utility customers — or about 600,000 people in homes and businesses — lost power, many for up to two weeks.
"We came as close as we have ever come to completely losing all communication," Van Dongen said.
In Massachusetts, the storm left an estimated 250,000 homes without power at its peak, with the Merrimack Valley and Central Massachusetts bearing the brunt of the outages and damage.
Heavy rain and sleet began late in the week. Temperatures plummeted and the wind picked up. Trees and power lines iced up. Limbs snapped, toppling on wires and ripping power lines off homes.
Not only were power lines down and roads closed in New Hampshire, but cable television was down in many instances, Van Dongen said.
Even radio fell short in many cases. Residents tuning in to hand-cranked radios often found themselves listening to holiday music or national news — not information about the storm that was affecting their lives.
Haverhill Human Services Director Vincent Ouellette called the 2008 ice storm the biggest local natural disaster since the Blizzard of 1978.
"It paralyzed the city ... About 15 elderly residents spent three days and nights in our shelter," said Ouellette, who oversees the facility in the Citizens Center on Welcome Street.
Ouellette said the downtown was one of the only pockets of the city not to lose power. Haverhill's deep and heavily wooded outskirts bore the brunt of the icy fury, he said.
"At my house on upper Main Street, we had no electricity for three days," Ouellette said. "I remember driving around and seeing wires ripped right off the sides of houses everywhere."
Response could have been better
Van Dongen and some southern New Hampshire fire chiefs said their response to the storm could have been better.
Van Dongen recalled a remark from a resident at a public hearing on the response.
"A woman said, 'You did a great job of communicating with people who had power,' but that wasn't good enough," he said.
In response, the New Hampshire emergency management office has turned to two old technology means — a 1950s and a 1900 model — to improve communication.
The 1950 model gets information out to the public via radio. The office has collected personal cell and land line numbers of radio station general managers and others employees who have agreed to spread information on their broadcasts.
State and local emergency management officials are assembling groups of ham radio operators who can set up remote sites at shelters and elsewhere to communicate with a state ham operation.
The 1900 model gets information out to the public via print means.
Jeff Coco, North Andover's emergency management director, said reports of power outages started coming in fast and furious when the storm hit.
"The odd thing was the roads were perfectly passable and clear, but everything else was coated with ice," he said.
Coco said one of the biggest problems the city's emergency workers dealt with was dangerous conditions in homes caused by flooded basements.
"Many people had lost power, so they couldn't operate their sump pumps," he said. "The Fire Department had to go around shutting off gas and boilers in those homes."
Many people also had spoiled food due to being without electricity for several days, Coco said.
Van Dongen said some fire departments, including the Derry department, used these strategies, among others, to communicate with residents. For instance, Derry spread information and warnings by supplying fliers to pizza delivery businesses, whose workers, in turn, distributed them to customers.
Newspapers also continued to get information to readers, he said.
The plan is for local emergency management officers to provide, through print means, lists of shelters, including whether they are pet friendly, as well as warnings about carbon monoxide poisoning, he said.
Anticipating the next disaster
Since the storm, Coco said, North Andover's Public Works Department has been paying a lot more attention to overhanging tree limbs that would be at risk for falling onto power lines in another large ice or wind storm.
"We're doing a lot more visual inspections of that now," he said.
John Santoro, emergency management director in Methuen, said many residents, as well as city and school officials, are now paying a lot more attention to their backup power generators.
"Many were old and needed to be replaced or at least upgraded," he said. "The storm also caused a lot of people to think about installing an alternate heating source, such as wood stoves."
"The biggest problem was that many people who lost their power on Friday didn't get it back for several days," said Santoro, who is also a Methuen police officer. "I remember a woman calling me Sunday crying that she had several kids and had been without power for three days. That part of it was tough. But there also were many stories about people going door to door checking on their neighbors, taking in those without power and doing whatever they could to help others. I remember the city and people really coming together."
Looking back, those who were in the thick of it have many positive memories as well — neighbors helping neighbors, volunteers pitching in to help others and a spirit of community often seen only in a crisis.
Haverhill and Methuen were hit particularly hard, with 14,000 and 11,000 National Grid customers, respectively, reporting power outages by noon on Dec. 12. North Andover reported 7,500 power outages, Lawrence 6,800 and Andover 4,500. Outages lasted from a few hours to four days or longer in some cases.
"We had about 75 people in our shelter at the Comprehensive Grammar School," Santoro recalled, adding that the shelter stayed open for three days.
Santoro said the city's shelter took in residents from neighboring communities as well, with the help of Red Cross workers and team of about 25 citizen volunteers. He said about 75 percent of the city lost power.
More direct contact needed
Londonderry fire Chief Kevin MacCaffrie said his department posted informational fliers at businesses including convenience stores and coffee shops. But it took 48 hours to get the information assembled and distributed.
"Now, we would do that right away," he said.
The department is looking at spreading information to people who sign up to receive text messages on their cell phones, MacCaffrie said.
Windham fire Chief Tom McPherson said his department would do more door-to-door, face-to-face, notification, especially in over-55 neighborhoods. The department may set up a reverse 911 notification program. It would also stage trucks and personnel in different parts of towns to speed their response to emergencies.
"Could we have done better? Sure," McPherson said.
Utility company spokesmen say they have taken steps to gather information about critical energy needs — such as a health care centers — and assign repair crews.
Public Service of New Hampshire, which has about 490,000 customers in the state, has 12 additional staff members trained to communicate with local emergency services directors, such as fire chiefs, PSNH spokesman Martin Murray said.
These staff members can learn more about the needs in towns and, in turn, inform the towns about what areas have had power restored and which ones are scheduled for restoration.
Last year, the three PSNH community relations managers who carry out these duties were overwhelmed by the number of towns where lines were down, Murray said.
Unitil has new emergency plan
Unitil Corporation, which has about 73,000 electric power customers in New Hampshire, has designed an emergency preparedness plan that sends more people into the field to assess damage and talk with customers, said Richard Francazio, Unitil's director of emergency management.
Unitil is compiling a list of customers with critical health needs. If Unitil cannot contact these people, they will alert public safety officials.
In addition, the company has committed to sending more people into the field to repair damaged lines.
During last year's ice storm, the company had 200 people in the field restoring power. Since then, it has trained 430 employees in field work and could have as many 1,000 people restoring power.
National Grid, which has about 38,000 customers in New Hampshire, has doubled, from four to eight, the number of employees communicating with public safety officials, said Bob Kerns, the company's director of emergency planning.
These employees will relay damage assessments and tell the officials when to expect power to be restored in different areas. A key complaint from residents, in response to last year's storm, was that power was out for too long.
Maureen Tebo of Sandown, whose health conditions require her to be on oxygen constantly, said the two weeks she went without power was unacceptable.
She has said this to PSNH, to the state Public Utilities Commission, and to legislators and members of Congress.
PSNH, however, said it is proud of the restoration work it did during the storm, and most customers were satisfied, Murray said.
He said the storm caused three times the damage of any previous storm. Also, within days of the ice storm, the region experienced a nor'easter and a snowstorm.
"If we encountered the same exact conditions today, it might be a similar situation," he said.
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