One dead in violent N.H. storm

(Essdras Suarez/Globe Staff)

Bob Bennett becomes overwhelmed with emotion after telling his 11-year old daughter over the phone that they no longer had a home and that their neighbor had perished when a storm hit their Epsom neighborhood.

By Stephanie Ebbert and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff, and Christopher Baxter, Globe Correspondent

A powerful storm tore through at least a half dozen towns in southeastern New Hampshire today, toppling trees, knocking out power, and damaging buildings, a state emergency management agency spokesman said today. At least one person was killed.

Jim Van Dongen, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, confirmed that one person was killed when a house collapsed in the town of Epsom. He was not able to release the identity of the victim or the house's location.

He said other people had been injured, but he did not know how many.

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch said the storm destroyed at least a half dozen homes and damaged at least 100. "The safety of families and individuals is our highest priority," he said, speaking to reporters after viewing the damaged area from a State Police helicopter.

Reports of damage from high winds came in just before noon from the Deerfield and Epsom area, said Van Dongen.

He said it wasn't clear if the storm that hit the southern part of Strafford County was a tornado. He said about seven communities had been affected as the storm "cut a swath of damage" from the Deerfield-Epsom area to the area near Wolfeboro and Alton. Lynch said the swath of damage stretched to New Durham.

The governor declared a state of emergency in Strafford County, as well as Belknap, Carroll, Merrimack, and Rockingham counties.

About a dozen National Guardsmen were en route to Epsom to assist local officials, said Lynch's press secretary, Colin Manning.

Karen Dail of Epsom said she was in a barn with a farrier shoeing her horse when the storm came. The farrier said, "My husband is from Texas and always says, 'If the sky turns green, there's a tornado coming,'" Dail recounted.

"When we looked out, it was getting green and you could see a funnel," Dail said. "You could see the clouds twisting on the road. ... Kayaks were hanging like kites in the woods."

On nearby Sleepy Hollow Lane, what one resident described as a large, nice house on Northwood Lake had completely collapsed. Houses on either side had survived with little damage. It wasn't clear if the house had been the scene of the fatality.

The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning at 11:46 a.m. for parts of Strafford, Belknap, Carroll, and Merrimack counties, saying that Doppler radar had located a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado 13 miles southwest of Farmington.

Epsom Selectwoman Joanne Randall said she didn't have many details on damage. But she said rescue efforts were being hampered by fallen trees and roads that were shut down for construction. She said selectmen had approved the opening of a bridge that was closed for construction so rescue vehicles could reach one area of town.

Robert Barry, a Concord police officer acting as a spokesman for the Central New Hampshire Special Operations Unit, which was assisting in the rescue efforts, said at a briefing in Epsom that two people from the Deerfield-Epsom area had been taken to Concord Hospital with injuries.

He said the worst-affected area in Deerfield and Epsom was a half-mile long and a few hundred yards wide. Firefighters and police officers from 20 area towns were conducting door-to-door searches to make sure residents were all right, he said.

A fire department dispatcher in Barnstead said a "tornado" went through town and several houses had collapsed. Barnstead was miraculously reporting no injuries by midafternoon but roads were cluttered with felled trees and power lines and the power companies were working with emergency crews to ground electric lines.

"We're cutting hand paths so we can go down on the highways," said Shawn Mulcahy, deputy fire chief in Barnstead. "Route 126 is completely blocked. Route 28 is completely blocked, and many of our smaller roads are blocked with huge trees, power lines, broken poles, and debris taller than a person. We have a lot of destruction."

Barnstead emergency officials were still trying to reach more than a dozen homes with people uninjured but trapped inside -- often, with downed electric lines outside.

"They are what we consider sheltered in place -- unable to get out of their residences but uninjured. We're holding them in their residences to make sure we can get them out safely. They're not going to have any power for days, any water."

"We have not transported a single patient," Mulcahy said.

Kirk Apffel, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Maine, said the service would send experts to survey the damage Friday to determine whether the storm had been a tornado. He noted that the damage reports were coming in from the area that the service had pinpointed in its tornado warning.

He said the experts would also be looking at the Freedom-Ossippee area slightly farther north, where another tornado warning was issued. Damage was also reported there, he said, but it was not as extensive.

(Daigo Fujiwara/Globe Staff)

• Comment
• Permalink
• Email