Greetings from New Hampshire!
My power was off for 34 hours, but some folks won’t have theirs back until Dec. 21 or even for 2 weeks. And that’s not in rural areas, that’s in large towns along major highways near Massachusetts.
Here’s what the spokesman for one of the power companies said:
“Particularly in the southern tier of the state ... there are a number of areas where the entire electric system must be rebuilt from the ground up. Many higher voltage power lines along the main roads require extensive rebuilding, and several thousand ‘tap lines’ connecting smaller roads and individual homes are also damaged.”
Folks who had generators were driving for miles to find open gas stations (most stations couldn’t pump - no electricity). And those stations that could pump ran out.
Many roads are still closed.
In Florida lots of people gave up on generators (we use them for Hurricanes ) for the same reasons. No gas to keep them going. Then some people with gas would wake up in the middle of the night to silence - someone had cut the chain holding their generator to the house and walked off with them. Now people are buying the large - whole house - generators that automatically switch over when the power goes off. They can run on diesel, natural gas, or propane.