CONCORD, N.H. – Utility crews worked through a night of hand-numbing cold in the Northeast but they still had a long way to go before restoring power to all of the more than 1 million homes and businesses blacked out by a huge ice storm.
In New Hampshire, where more than 370,000 customers still had no electricity Saturday, Gov. John Lynch urged residents still without power to make overnight plans early.
"I think there were a lot of people who decided to just stick it out and stay home last night hoping that power would be restored today, but I think people have to assume that power will not come back today and seek shelter," Lynch said.
Utilities say it will be days before all service is restored.
Temperatures dipped into the teens Friday night and early Saturday in northern New England, forcing many people out of their homes and into shelters.
About 60 people spent the night at the Rochester, N.H., Middle School, including Debbie Reed, 57, who left her apartment Friday afternoon when she started seeing her breath.
"I still don't have power. I can't shower, I can't cook, I can't do much of anything," she said. "My plan is to go home and see how long I can stand it. If the power isn't back on by tonight I'll come back here. It's so cold I can only stand it for so long."
The ice storm compared with some of the Northeast's worst, especially in New Hampshire, where more than half the state — 400,000-plus homes and businesses — was without power at the peak of the outage. Far fewer customers were affected by the infamous Ice Storm of '98, when some residents spent more than a week in the dark. New Hampshire opened at least 25 shelters.
People lost power as far south as Pennsylvania, but most of the outages were in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and New York.
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