A severe thunderstorm left 1,300 Franklin County CMP customers powerless late Thursday afternoon, but apparently caused little disruption in Oxford and Androscoggin counties.
By 6:30 p.m., Central Maine Power reported 3,374 power outages statewide, with the majority in the Farmington area, Communications Center supervisor Kevin Howes said by phone from Augusta.
He expected crews to be out all night restoring power.
At about 7 p.m., an Oxford County Regional Communications Center dispatch supervisor said they didn’t field many calls for help during the storm other than reports of hail in Woodstock.
A Franklin County dispatcher said they sent firefighters out to about six calls of trees on power lines.
According to the National Weather Service, by late afternoon, they were fielding reports of 3/4-inch diameter hail in West Paris and Dixfield, and golf ball-sized hail in Kennebec County.
By 7:41 p.m., the service warned residents in Androscoggin and Cumberland counties to expect hail up to half an inch in diameter, heavy downpours, frequent cloud-to-ground lightning and gusty winds of 35 to 45 mph.
Maine Warden Service spokesman Mark Latti, who was driving across Western Maine during the storm, said Lovell appeared to take the brunt of the storm.
“I was driving through Lovell and there was debris all over the place. They must have had some pretty high winds,” Latti said.
Further north in the state, storm-related apparently blew a DC-3 airplane across the tarmac early Thursday afternoon at Greenville Airport. The errant aircraft struck several smaller planes, according to the National Weather Service.
The storm even blew a tree down onto a police cruiser at 7:05 p.m. on Route 221 in Glenburn in Penobscot County, according to weather service damage reports.
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