Storms cause outages across southern Maine

PORTLAND – Mainers are cleaning up after a strong band of thunderstorms knocked down trees, dropped nickel-sized hail and left thousands of people without power.

Several bands of storms with torrential downpours and high winds made their way across Maine on Friday afternoon, leaving nearly 20,000 Central Maine Power customers without power as trees toppled onto power lines.

Across Cumberland and York counties, residents reported downed trees blocking several major roads. According to the National Weather Service, lightning struck a house in South Portland.

CMP reported nearly 20,000 power outages early Friday evening, but the number had dropped to about 17,000 at 9 p.m., mostly in the Portland service area.