While the remnants of Hurricane Sandy continue churning their way north from western Pennsylvania over the next several days, the bulk of her damaging winds blew through Maine on Monday, knocking out power to 159,000 residents over the course of 24 hours.

The continued rain showers also prompted the National Weather Service to issue flood watches for Oxford and Franklin counties until 6 a.m. Wednesday.

John Carroll, spokesman for Central Maine Power, said as of 9 p.m. Tuesday that fewer than 30,000 customers remained without power. Thanks to a limited state of emergency signed late last week by Gov. Paul LePage, the utility company had help from crews from Canada.

A workforce of nearly 1,000 line workers, tree crews, assessors, safety specialists and support personnel began repairing power lines early Tuesday morning. But Carroll added that crews actually hit the streets Monday afternoon in an effort to stay ahead of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy and worked through the night.

“We had crews out Monday at noon to start making repairs,” Carroll said. “Our crews worked straight through the storm. Sometimes they were ahead of the curve, sometimes they were behind it.”

Cumberland and York counties were hardest-hit by power outages overnight, with about 104,000 customers without power throughout Monday into Tuesday, Carroll said. About 4,200 customers ended up in the dark in Franklin County, while Oxford County had 9,039 without power and Androscoggin County had 7,265 customers who lost power over the course of the storm.

As of Tuesday night, nearly 24,000 customers in Cumberland and York counties were without power, while 2,589 remained in the dark in Franklin County, 881 in Oxford County and 95 in Androscoggin County.

According to Tom Hawley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, it’s really no wonder so many CMP customers experienced power outages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s strong winds. Wind gusts reached 140 mph on Mt. Washington, according to the Mount Washington Observatory, and Hawley said several parts of the region were hit with gusts up to nearly 50 mph during the peak of the storm.

Hawley said wind gusts in Lewiston reached 47 mph Monday night, with sustained winds of about 25-30 mph. Wind gusts in Oxford County reached as high as 36 mph and gusts in Franklin County reached 44 mph, while sustained winds in both counties were 20-25 mph.

According to Hawley, Hurricane Sandy’s soggy weather will stick around through Friday as the slow-moving storm continues north. He said the weather system is stalled over western Pennsylvania right now, but should start moving north into New Hampshire and Maine over the next couple of days.