November 23, 2024
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Weekend gusts blow down trees; thousands lose power

Rain and heavy winds that gusted up to 50 mph late Saturday and much of Sunday wreaked havoc in much of the state, causing power outages from the Millinocket-Lincoln area to the southern Maine coast.

Winds and heavy rain brought down trees, limbs and branches. They caused electrical problems ranging from traffic hazards to power outages and fluctuations that triggered alarm systems.

More than 12,000 Central Maine Power customers and several thousand customers in Bangor Hydro-Electric Co.’s service area temporarily lost power. Outages were still being reported at press time Sunday night.

Hardest hit in Bangor Hydro’s territory were customers in its Hancock distribution area, followed by the Bangor, Machias and northern Penobscot County areas, in that order, a Bangor Hydro spokeswoman said Sunday afternoon.

Most of the affected Bangor Hydro customers had their power restored within an hour of losing it, she said. The exceptions involved cases in which there were complications, such as trees that needed to be removed to give repair crews access to problem areas.

CMP’s outage troubles came in two waves, affecting more than 12,000 customers.

The first wave of outages began Saturday night and affected about 1,500 Central Maine customers in the Rockland area, another 2,000 in the Brunswick area, an estimated 1,100 in the Portland area and about 3,000 at York.

Electricity was restored to most of those customers by 2 p.m. Sunday.

Later Sunday afternoon, however, more than 6,000 additional CMP customers lost power in a second wave of outages, according to a utility spokesman.

Nearly 5,000 customers found themselves without electricity after a tree fell on a power line northeast of Sebago Lake. Another 2,000 customers in the Portland area lost power due to a construction problem unrelated to the weather.

Service had been restored to all but about 1,200 accounts in the Casco area, where crews were still working on an electrical problem at a local substation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report


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