EAST MILLINOCKET – A lightning strike late Tuesday stopped production at the Katahdin Paper Co. LLC mill for a workday on Wednesday, company officials said.

The strike hit a Katahdin Paper substation about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, tripping computers and the plant’s electrical grid but otherwise doing no damage, Glenn Saucier, a human resources manager and company spokesman said. The plant was getting back on line by 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“It took us down, which is normal. We have this more often than we want,” Saucier said Wednesday. “This is just a basic, normal startup.”

About 350 workers work at the plant at 50 Main St., but none was sent home during the outage. Workers did maintenance work or worked to get the plant operational again, Saucier said.

The plant makes 400 to 500 tons of telephone directory paper a day, Saucier said. The loss of a day’s worth of manufactured paper should not affect the company too much, he said.

“This is a busy time for everybody. If you talk to these guys [workers], they will tell you that they prefer it not to happen because it’s a lot of work,” Saucier said.

The lightning was part of several spectacular summer storms that moved through parts of central and northern Maine overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. The weather prompted reports of lightning strikes, sudden heavy rains, and high winds throughout much of Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

This was the second time lightning had disrupted operations at the East Millinocket facility, Saucier said. No damage was reported at Katahdin Paper’s Millinocket facility.

Katahdin Paper Co. employs 540 workers in both facilities. It produces approximately 280,000 tons of newsprint and directory papers per year with an additional 185,000 tons of Supercalendered paper. It produces 550 tons of stone groundwood and 300-350 tons of recycled pulp.

The plants make Katahdin Paper one of the Katahdin region’s largest employers.