Nature vs. man Keeping the lights on

New Hampshire's largest electric utilities have substantially increased their tree-trimming budgets since the great ice storm of 2008. They are taking away more limbs and taking down more trees in a wider zone around power lines than ever before.

The Thanksgiving Day storm, which left more than 200,000 electricity customers without power, put the question of tree trimming back in the spotlight.

Utility representatives say the number of outages in recent storms could have been a lot worse, but there's no way they could trim enough trees to win every war with Mother Nature in the most heavily forested state in the country.

The 2008 ice storm prompted utilities to look harder at mitigating weather-related electrical outages.

"After that, the Public Utilities Commission brought in some consultants to look at all the utilities in New Hampshire, and how they responded to that ice storm," said Bob Allen, supervisor of Public Service of New Hampshire's vegetation management program.

The consultant's report, among other things, recommended more aggressive tree trimming and removal. After that, PSNH, which serves 70 percent of the state, launched a program to trim one-quarter of the "maintenance miles" in its franchise area each year.

By the end of this year, the utility will have completed the first four-year cycle, having trimmed every mile of its network between 2010 and 2014, according to Allen.

"Of course if we get a fatal storm tonight or tomorrow, we might not finish," he said. "But I believe we will finish the fourth year and be on cycle."

Increasing costs

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Nature vs. man Keeping the lights on