PORTLAND (AP) – With heating oil prices 37 percent higher than they were a year ago, some of Maine’s social service agencies are being bombarded with requests for home heating assistance.

“There is a crisis for some people already,” said John Kerry, director of the state Office of Energy Independence and Security. Kerry is heading a task force working on a plan to help Mainers cope with this winter’s soaring heating prices.

Reports by administrators of fuel assistance programs around the state buttress Kerry’s claims.

Catherine McConnell of Midcoast Maine Community Action says that agency has already run out of its emergency fuel funds for December and won’t be able to provide any more emergency fuel until next month. Emergency deliveries are provided to income-eligible people who have one- eighth of a tank or less.

At the People’s Regional Opportunity Program, which runs fuel assistance in Cumberland County, Executive Director Suzanne McCormick said people are “absolutely panicking.

“What we are trying to do is calm people down,” McCormick said.

Angela Handy, a single mother who lives in a one-bedroom bungalow-style house in Raymond, is among those who are nervously watching their heating fuel supplies. To conserve as much as possible, Handy has tacked blankets against most of her windows.

Handy said she’s not sure what she’ll do when the 50 gallons of heating oil she received last month runs out.

“I use six to seven gallons a day,” Handy said.

Maine’s average federal fuel aid benefit of $579 is enough to last a family about a month this year. Five years ago, that amount would cover half the heating season.

In 2006, more than 49,400 households in Maine received federal fuel assistance, and this year, officials expect to help 50,000 households by spring.

Dale McCormick, director of Maine State Housing Authority, which distributes federal fuel assistance, said the problem is that while fuel prices have risen sharply, federal fuel aid has not. Lawmakers from Maine and other cold-weather states are pushing for more federal fuel assistance money.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-12-16-07 1104EST