Chatting with people around the region, many stories are the same – no electricity, no phones and trees down everywhere.

As residents wait day after day for their electricity to come back on, they become increasingly irritable as the frustration of the situation mounts. And those who don’t have generators or alternative heating sources have been forced to leave their homes until power is restored.

Alexander Bosse at Shirley Hill Road in Goffstown was one of many people forced to leave his home after he found himself cold and in the dark. Bosse said a utility pole fell into the street in front of his home, closing the road to traffic. He lost power in his home at approximately 3 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 12.

Bosse called the Fire Department for help pumping 7 inches of water out of his cellar. They were also able to move him to a Red Cross shelter at Mountain View Middle School.

“I’ve lost power before for three or four hours, but nothing like this,” said Bosse. “I’m wondering what kind of mess I’m going to have when I get home.”

Bosse said nothing landed on his house, but utility wires were ripped clear off the structure.

When the shelter at MVMS closed Sunday afternoon, he and the other two people left there were moved to a shelter at Southern New Hampshire University in Hooksett.

The Red Cross shelters that have opened throughout the region all offer food, shelter, warm beds and blankets. Some even offer hot showers, such as the site at SNHU.

“We’ve had wonderful workers coming in from out of state from our national deployment system,” said Lisa Michaud, executive director of the Greater Manchester American Red Cross.

“It’s a Godsend we have places like this,” said Bosse. “I’ve never been in a place like this in my life.”

Lisa Segal of Tower Hill Drive in Bow has been without power since late in the afternoon on Thursday, Dec. 11.

“We have a lot of trees on our house,” said Segal. “It looks like a war zone. It’s completely pitch black out there. You can’t see a thing.

“We also drained our pipes so they don’t freeze again,” said Segal, as her family ended up with frozen pipes during the ice storm of 1998.

She said her family has been staying at the Hampton Inn in Bow since Friday, Dec. 12.

“All the kids are having a ball. They have a pool and are just running around,” said Segal. Chad Pimentel, director of sales at the Hampton Inn, said the hotel currently has no vacancy and was sold out on Friday, Dec. 12.

“It’s not the way we want to do business, but we’re sold out,” he said. “As people started to realize this was a major catastrophe and wouldn’t have power anytime soon, they started calling in.”

Pimentel said many people have been checking out in the morning and making reservations for the same night. They leave to check on their homes during the day, hoping power will come back, and return when it gets dark.

Jennifer Lord of Branch Road in Weare said the town looked like a war zone. The family’s home lost power, and when they left to shower and get warm at her sister’s home in Manchester, they had to take several detours to even get out of town, as large trees were down everywhere.

“Really, it looked like Armageddon,” said Lord.

When the storm was at its peak and power went out about 1 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 12, she said tree limbs kept breaking and crashing onto the nearby lake, startling her children each time they struck.

“You should have heard how loud it was. It was like gunshots,” said Lord.

Fortunately, neighbors are helping neighbors, she said, as one is letting her family borrow a generator that they are running every so often to keep their pipes from freezing.

Mary Dawson of 515 Mountain Road in Goffstown also lost power at her home about 1 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 12. She and her family were able to stay in their home, as they a have a generator.

“Our furnace wouldn’t turn on (though),” said Dawson. They put a call into the oil company Crawford and Vogel to have somebody go out to fix their furnace. The employee, Dave, wasn’t able to get up Mountain Road, but said if her husband, Michael MacDonald, would go down to get him, he would gladly fix their furnace. MacDonald drove down the mountain, and their furnace was fixed, as promised.

Dawson also said that one of her neighbors, John Alan Brown of 568 Mountain Road, owner of John A. Brown Excavating, cleared a path down Mountain Road so residents wouldn’t be trapped in their homes. She also said he did this for free.

“He is the man in the mountain who cut his way down,” said Dawson. “Who knows when crews would have gotten up here.”

Brown also hosted a Christmas party at his home on Friday, Dec. 12, for neighbors and friends.

“It was wonderful amidst all this devastation to be able to go there,” said Dawson.