Down East slammed with outages Storm’s high winds, rain knock out power statewide

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BANGOR – A storm that brought strong winds, thunder, lightning and heavy rain to Maine on Sunday left thousands of Mainers without electrical service.

The afternoon storm brought trees and limbs in contact with power lines, causing power outages and other problems that kept police, firefighters and utility workers busy for several hours.

A damaged transmission line running from the Veazie substation into Washington County left about 15,000 Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. customers – more than 14,000 of them Down East – without electricity for several hours Sunday, said Bangor Hydro spokeswoman Susan Faloon.

The transmission line was repaired before 7 p.m., leaving scattered outages in Amherst, Bangor, Blue Hill, Bradley, Ellsworth, Hampden, Machiasport and Trenton.

Once that problem was addressed, Hancock County experienced more than 10,000 additional outages, bringing the day’s total to nearly 25,000 affected customers, though not all were without electricity at the same time, Faloon reported.

Crews were working on scattered outages in the northern and Bangor divisions as of press time Sunday. Faloon said the company hoped to have as many customers as possible restored by the end of the night.

“All available crews are working to restore service to our customers as quickly and safely as possible,” she said.

Electricity also was knocked out in northern Maine, according to Dave Weeks, manager of system operations for Maine Public Service Co. The outages, which began about 2:30 p.m. in New Sweden, were “systemwide” from the company’s southernmost reaches in Sherman Station north to Quimby.

About 1,700 customers were affected at the storm’s peak, Weeks said, adding that line crews from throughout Aroostook County were called in, as well as three extra telephone operators and two system operations staffers.

As of 8 p.m., 500 remained without power, Weeks said.

“We have one circuit left to restore and we expect everyone to be back up within 15 or 20 minutes,” he said.

Heavy rains expected in northern Aroostook County prompted the National Weather Service’s Caribou office to issue a flash-flood warning, meteorologist Mike Fitzsimmons said.

The warning was called off shortly after 6 p.m., when it became apparent that the danger of flooding had passed, he said.

“We’ve made our calls [to local officials] and they all had negative responses,” he said.

Though some rivers and streams were swollen, none had breached their banks, he said.

“We’ve only had impounding of water on some of the roadways,” he said.

According to Fitzsimmons, Sunday’s storm was not uncommon for this time of year.

“It was just a typical cold front coming through,” he said. The trouble occurred when that cold front encountered the warm and humid weather already here.

“They clashed,” he said.

Richard Moore, a dispatcher with the Washington County Regional Communication Center, said most Down Easters were taking the Father’s Day power outage in stride.

There were no calls about storm- or outage-related health problems, and only one call from a disgruntled NASCAR fan from East Machias with heartburn about missing the end of a race.

“It’s pretty much been just general inquiries about why the power is out and when it will come back,” Moore said.

Despite the outage, it was business as usual at Washington County RCC.

“We’re at 100 percent,” Moore said. “We’re on [a] backup generator that supplies the entire facility,” from dispatch, jail and court facilities to the building’s administrative areas.

Though the dispatchers work out of a basement facility, Moore said they would be able to tell when power was restored to the outside world by checking the television.

“When the power went out, so did the cable [television],” he said.

“That’s our power indicator,” he said.

Central Maine Power Co. got off relatively easy in the storm: About 480 customers lost electricity, a CMP dispatcher said.

Most of the outages were isolated to small areas, such as one or two streets, though there was a heavier concentration in the Brunswick area, he said.

Service was expected to be restored by early Sunday evening.