I dont understand, why does -5 to -15 destroy new hampshire infrastructure?? It's bloody -35 in calgary right now. (and around -5 on the northwest coast) I wonder why it's so cold this winter.
My parents live in NH, at the end of a dead-end dirt road and they're probably going to be without power until Wednesday. I spent most of the weekend trying to keep their generator working for them (my hands still smell of gas). All the Home Depot's in the area are price gouging, selling the generators as they come off the truck for $200 more than they're normally priced (and only allowing one per-customer). I even heard that people were driving truck-loads of generators up from further South and selling them off the back of their trucks.
(I attempted to write something creative about all this on my blog if you're bored at work: http://tinyurl.com/5uyu6n)
I know this sucks for people in New Hampshire, but if Home Depot weren't allowed to raise prices you would not have people driving truckloads of generators in to meet demand. Plentiful and expensive generators are better than fairly priced generators that have completely run out. It's the beauty of the market.
Having said that, yes, it does suck that people in New Hampshire are being charged extra for generators, and I'd probably be pissed too.
I would expect gouging to exacerbate this -- people will want to recover some of the money they spent too much of.