LEWISTON – High winds knocked out power Friday to roughly 70 customers in and around the Twin Cities, including an Auburn school.

In central and southern Maine, more than 6,000 Central Maine Power customers lost power due to tree limbs falling on power lines.

By 8:30 p.m., those numbers had dropped significantly; CMP reported 3,252 without power, and power was restored to all customers in the Lewiston district. Only five Farmington customers still had no electrical service by 8:30 p.m., down from 65 earlier.

Gusts up to 50 mph

Winds gusted up to 50 mph throughout the state Friday, starting early in the morning and continuing well into the evening. Property damage was reported throughout the state.

In Bangor, Maine Public Broadcasting Network says strong winds tore a large section of the roof from its administrative building.

No injuries were reported and employees working in the building were immediately evacuated.

Power was cut to an adjacent building that houses MPBN’s television and radio broadcast studios and a backup generator was used to supply electricity.

“March has been known to be windy,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Marine said. It’s typical when cold air fronts clash with warm air masses, he said.

Power out at school

At the Park Avenue Elementary School in Auburn, the power went out from about 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Friday, Principal Vickie Gaylord said.

“There really was not an impact,” Gaylord said. Classes resumed when power was restored.

Except for the strong wind, “it was a beautiful, sunny day. The rooms were very lit,” she said. Energy-saving lights in classrooms routinely dim and brighten according to available exterior light. Students are used to lights going on and off.

The school is the designated emergency shelter for the area. The school has backup power from a generator that covers some of the building. “The generator kicked in. Everything continued,” Gaylord said.

Some teachers didn’t notice the outage, weren’t aware that their clocks had stopped working and were surprised to learn near the end of the day it was time for students to go home, Gaylord said.

Some bathrooms had power from the generator. In bathrooms without power, students used flashlights, Gaylord said. The whole event “was not exciting.”

Central Maine Power said the highest concentration of outages earlier in the day were in a Brunswick neighborhood where the wind uprooted a tree that took down three utility poles and several sections of power line.

Meteorologist Marine said Saturday’s winds should subside to 10-20 mph.

– Staff Writer Bonnie Washuk contributed to this story.