Wicked winds wallop Maine Gov. Baldacci declares state of emergency; power slowly restored

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BANGOR – It rained tree limbs Wednesday as a fast-moving storm buffeted Maine with gale-force winds that swamped boats along the coast and triggered power outages across the state.

More than 90,000 customers were without power for at least a portion of Wednesday, according to representatives of Central Maine Power and Bangor Hydro-Electric Co.

Gov. John Baldacci declared a state of emergency. The declaration could facilitate the movement of power crews across state lines.

Most of the outages were caused by the wind knocking tree limbs onto power lines, CMP spokesman John Carroll said.

“As of about 1:30 p.m., 70,630 homes and businesses [were] without power,” he said. “It’s really across our entire service area. It started earlier down in southern York County and swept through our service area.” As of 8 p.m. the number was down to 54,650.

A Bangor Hydro representative said the strong winds and rain caused outages affecting 20,000 customers at the storm’s height early Wednesday afternoon.

“The outages are currently affecting distribution lines which feed individual customers,” Bangor Hydro employee Jen Brooker said in a 3 p.m. press release. By 10 p.m. the number without power had been reduced to 4,964.

Crews from both CMP and Bangor Hydro planned to work through the night to restore power to customers.

“We expect that there will be customers without power into and through the evening and potentially until tomorrow morning,” Bangor Hydro’s Brooker warned.

CMP repairs were expected to take longer, Carroll said.

“For much of the state it will be midday to late afternoon [Thursday] before we finish up,” he said. “But some areas in coastal Sagadahoc County may not get service until Friday afternoon.”

The National Weather Service posted a high-wind warning for the entire state early Wednesday.

According to the weather service Web site, a severe marine storm warning was issued for the Maine coastline and Cape Cod.

The strongest wind gusts were 63 mph in Jonesport and 62 mph in Cape Elizabeth, said meteorologist Tom Hawley. Rockland recorded a gust of 53 mph, Portland 47 mph, Lewiston 45 mph and Bangor 40 mph.

Moorings slipped

Coastal Maine was hit hardest with numerous boats slipping their moorings and washing up on shore or swamping.

Around Rockland Harbor, the U.S. Coast Guard was busy chasing loose boats most of the day.

The 37-foot lobster boat Puffin, which was converted to a recreational vessel, sank at its mooring, according to Petty Officer Jeremy Gourde.

Several boats that broke away from their moorings were the Captain Jack, a 30-foot lobster boat, owned by Steve Hale of Rockland; three 50-foot sailing vessels, Flying Cloud and Windward and an unidentified boat. All of the vessels were towed to other moorings, Gourde said.

In Belfast, the gale rampaged through the harbor, smashing floats and foundering boats. Belfast Harbor is susceptible when the wind blows from the southeast, as it was when Harbor Master Kathy Messier arrived at the city docks at 5:30 a.m.

“It was already starting to pick up and there were some really big swells coming in,” said Messier.

Wind-driven swells of 5 to 6 feet smashed over the breakwater and crushed some of the city’s floats to pieces. Messier said a number of dinghies were broken apart after being thrashed against the rocks.

The sailboat Salsa slipped its mooring in the inner harbor and was tossed on the beach at the east side of the Belfast Footbridge.

The outer harbor did not fare well, either. Five boats were cut loose when the mussel barge Mumbles was pushed by winds through a mooring field, cutting boats free in its wake. Mumbles is used to retrieve mussels from aquaculture floats in waters between Northport and Islesboro. It was tied to a mooring, but the force of the storm caused the barge to drag its mooring.

Graham and Turner retrieved most of the boats cut loose by Mumbles. One sunk in waters off the Consumers Fuel Wharf. Jackson Street resident Charlie Hall watched helplessly as Mumbles cut the line of his son’s powerboat the Plan B. The waves picked up the boat and slammed it onto rocks near Steamboat Landing. Hall was amazed at the power of the storm and relieved that it dissipated so quickly.

Bangor trees fall

Fire Department personnel from in and around the Bangor area were called to assist with numerous fallen trees and downed lines.

“That’s basically what we’ve been doing this morning,” Bangor Assistant Fire Chief Darrell Cry said Wednesday just after noon. “We’ve actually had eight or nine runs for trees on wires and wires being down.”

Arthur Stockus, director of Bangor Public Works Department, said his crew of around 60 also spent much of Wednesday dealing with downed trees and the problems the trees caused.

“We have several areas where power is out and traffic lights are not working,” Stockus said.

Bangor High School, Vine Street School, James F. Doughty and Fairmount School all had outages, according to Superintendent Robert Ervin.

Numerous other towns reported minor problems. Orono acting Town Manager David Struck said power was out in portions of downtown for about four hours. He said by around 3 p.m. most Orono customers had power restored.

Another power outage also caused traffic lights to go out in Brewer. Additional Police Department personnel were called in to direct traffic and deal with safety issues.

Hendrickus Lulofs, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Caribou, said that in Aroostook County there were locally heavy rains, 1 to 2 inches in the southern part of county, and 1/2inch in the northern area of the St. John Valley.

During the afternoon at Presque Isle, electricity was cut off for short periods of time.

Maine Public Service Co. crews were kept busy from 12:30 p.m. through the afternoon at “various places and all over the place,” according to Virginia Joles, spokesperson for the company.

“Our crews have been chasing outages all afternoon,” she said. “We lost distribution circuits in Westfield, Presque Isle and Mars Hill, and most of those have been repaired.”

She said there was a transmission line outage from Presque Isle to Ashland. By 4 p.m., service was back on from Mapleton to Ashland. She said the company expected “on and off again” service through the afternoon and evening as long as winds persisted.

In Somerset County, emergency dispatchers were frantically trying to keep up with the calls Wednesday morning regarding downed limbs and power lines; however, none of the incidents caused damage or accidents.

SAD 48 dismissed students at 1:30 p.m. because of a loss of power. There was no electricity at Somerset Middle School in Hartland and St. Albans School.

Other towns reporting tree and utility damage were Pittsfield, Skowhegan, Palmyra, Fairfield, Solon, Canaan, Corinna and Athens.

Airport director Rebecca Hupp said there had been no need to reroute flights at Bangor International Airport. She said technology allows pilots to land in most weather.

The wind was so bad Wednesday morning that even the geese were lying low. A woman called the Bangor Daily News office to report more than 30 geese had decided to use her back yard on South Road in Holden as a refuge.

Bangor Daily News reporters Sharon Mack, Leanne Robicheau, Walter Griffin, Tom Groening, Beurmond Banville and The Associated Press contributed to this report.