Under Construction. Fines Double in Work Zones.

In the next several weeks this blog will undergo some changes. While I've enjoyed using "North of the Border" as my blog's moniker for the past two years, I'm no longer a resident of the great state of New Hampshire. In fact, I'm much further south (though renaming this site "South of the Border" would be disingenous, though logical, because that name has already been taken by a ghastly tourist trap on Route 95 in South Carolina) to Silver Spring, Maryland.

I've also left my freelance gig with the New Hampshire Union Leader. So using this site to expand on my day-to-day coverage is no longer possible. Hence, expect a format change in the near future.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to use this space for as I get settled in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., but rest assured it will not remain empty for long.

Until then, I'll be trying to come up with a clever(er) title.

Out like a lamb?

For New Hampshire and much of the northeast, March has been a lion. With this week's storm and subsequent flooding, there's not much hope the expression "going out like a lamb" will ring true this year.

In Salem, that's meant flooding. Lots and lots of flooding. Rising waters aren't as bad as in 2006 and 2007, but that's little consolation for homeowners stacking sandbags and running pumps or business owners closing up shop because of washed out roads.

Here's a look at what Monday and Tuesday's rain did to Salem:

Clearwater

Clearwater Beach, Florida. If it's March, you can't beat it.

Election day in southern New Hampshire

Storm Watch

If you're reading this, you probably have power. Or a readily accessible library, McDonalds or Starbucks nearby.

In any event, I've fled New Hampshire until power is restored. Here's the Union Leader's actively updated storm-watch blog: http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Granite+State+storm+blog&articleId=4d0f7d5f-7a52-451b-a65d-7687495f67c4

Gimme shelter

It's been a while, I know. I beg forgiveness upon all of you.

If anyone still subscribes to this on and off again news(y) blog, you're probably scratching your head. Why, you ask yourself, would Derrick come out of seclusion after all this time?

Like much of the rest of the state, Windham is in the dark tonight. Routes 111 and 28 are back on the grid, but don't tell that to anyone living in the residential neighborhoods. Police say most of the roads are open, damages are light - depending on where you live - and crews are working as fast as they can. Local utility companies are not advertising any estimates on when power could be restored.

During 2008's ice storm, many were told power would be restored in 1-3 days. That stretched to 7 days for myself and more than 2 weeks for others. Let's hope it's not a repeat.

Anyway, here are some shots I've taken of the ravages left by last night's Nor'easter. It's been a busy news day:

This Meetinghouse Road home was spared the wrath of the storm. Eight trees, toppled by heavy gusts, missed by inches.

Water flows over Emerson Way bridge from a swollen Widow Harris Brook. This is one of several flooded spots around Salem today.

The traffic lights were working again along Routes 28 and 111 by this afternoon, but most of the rest of Windham was still without power, the transfer station included. Officials aren't guessing when the lights will come back on.

Main Street in Salem, closed. Thankfully, the nearby fire station was built on higher ground. Most people avoided the puddle, but a few took the opportunity to put their SUVs to good use.

Cook's Trailer Park in Salem, N.H., off of Route 28, is under several inches of water. The residents are well practiced. The park floods once every year or so.

Outbreak

It's colder when I get to the parking lot -  stretching out like a vast rolling, black desert before me - then when I left my home only twenty minutes before hand. Out in front the Rockingham Park racetrack, known most famously for it's heyday about forty years prior and as the set of a few gambling movies, sprawls out across the horizon.

Completely out of place in an otherwise very quiet, very 

deserted locale, are a dozen tents flapping in the cold February wind, parked emergency vehicles with an array of antennas and satellite dishes sprouting up from within them, and very serious looking men and women in body armor and military boots. 

It could have come straight out of a movie on the SciFi channel.

Captain William Warnock of the Salem Fire Department assures me that this is all part of a regularly scheduled drill for the regional Hazmat team and this time they're excited to be joined by the New Hampshire National Guard's 12th Civil Support Team - tasked with aiding municipalities handle terrorist threats and natural disasters.

Observing the drill is a team up from Georgia, members of the Army North command. They shiver as the snow begins to fall - we're expected to get between 4 and 8 inches that day - and bundle up. 

One officer, wearing two winter hats stacked on top of each other, keeps staring at me in my jeans and leather jacket out from underneath the hood of a heavy duty parka. 

"Quit pretending it's 80 degrees out," he tells me and then wanders off to shiver some more.

The drill itself - aside from being completely out of the ordinary in the empty parking lot of a racetrack - is rather mundane. Two teams comprised of local firefighters and National Guard personnel ride up to the site of the "attack" in full biohazard suits. 

As patrons walk in and out with curious looks the teams scan the air with a wide range of gear that their commander, Major Erik Fessenden, calls a state-of-the-art mix of military and civilian technology.

In the month of preparatory work leading up the joint exercise the team of observers have set up harmless substances that ought to simulate the readings of a real-world dangerous chemical agent. After getting the perfunctory questions out of the way (What is the scenario? Who is involved? How does this work? How many times annually are these teams tested?) I ask team chief Daniel Robbins if he enjoys doing this. 

"This must be fun, right?" I ask. "To put the shoe on the other foot, to test these guys and go about pretending to be on the other side."

Robbins smiles and laughs for the first time since I started talking to him.

"Sure, it's 30 degrees out, snowing and we're from Atlanta, but if you watch the guys they all have a smile on their face."