the past few days have been pretty crazy.

i know i posted about this a little bit earlier yesterday ... but if you weren't reading, or didn't catch it, the northeast had a ridiculous winter storm move through thursday and friday. the northern half of new hampshire got mostly snow, but ice covered the rest of the state, as well as much of maine and northern massachusetts. as a result, power got knocked out to over 400,000 residents in new hampshire, and several tens of thousands in maine and massachusetts.

friday morning i went to bed around 1:30 for a nap - just after posting that radar map. my alarm went off around 2:30 and i awoke to a dark room, as i'd left it, but when trying to turn on the light, i discovered we were without power. i'm honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did, as i've heard reports of people losing it hours beforehand. i'm staying a mile or so away from the radio station right now, so when i realized the power was out i called the station. turns out my boss was already there and they were swamped, so i decided to just go in, as i wasn't going to sit in a dark house for two hours.

after having to move three or four pretty large tree branches out of several parts of the road, i made it to work around 2:45 ... and didn't leave for a very long time. it was just constant mayhem. we ended up getting over 600 cancellations. there were eight of us there by 6:00 am and it was still too overwhelming. i heard tons of stories from all across the state and region of people without power, without heat, stranded in their homes by ice or downed power lines across the road. any schools that issued two hour delays quickly changed to closing. everything was a complete mess. the onslaught calmed by about 7:30 but businesses kept calling throughout the day to announce their closings so it kept us busy.

eventually, the governor declared a state of emergency, and we were able to get him on the phone. even then, he was predicting power to be out for several days. when i looked outside, i was greeted by nothing but ice absolutely everywhere. surprisingly, the roads were okay except for the branches down all over the place. i went for a drive and checked out the area. if you're on facebook, i have a whole album of pictures up there, but if you're not, check out the PSNH (Public Service of New Hampshire) flickr map that they put up with customer photos. every photo for dover is a photo i took when i went out, and it's interesting to see how the storm affected other communities too.

thankfully friday night i was able to spend with friends who had power and heat, but then a few of my "roommates" and i went back to where i'm staying and we just bunkered down for the night. it was damn cold, and it was really uncomfortable no matter what we did to stay warm. thankfully i'm up at home tonight, so i didn't have it all that awful. there are still (as of about 8 pm) 200,000 residents in new hampshire, and i'm sure plenty in maine and massachusetts without power tonight. it's not getting any warmer than ten degrees for the rest of the evening. shelters have been opened up, and hopefully some will take advantage. with any luck, power will be somewhat close to restored in dover tomorrow when i go back, and the station will be able to get off the generator if they haven't already; diesel isn't cheap these days!

i will say, and i'm probably a nut for saying this ... i kind of enjoyed doing stormwatch, even though it drove me absolutely nuts while i was in the middle of it. looking back on it, while there's a ton going on, and everything's up in the air, it certainly got my adrenaline going and it was refreshing to be a reassuring voice on the other end of the line telling people they were going to be okay, even though many at the time sure didn't feel that way.