LEWISTON — Nearly 200,000 CMP customers were without power Friday morning after a storm dumped several inches of heavy, wet snow through much of the region overnight and into the morning.

That number was whittled down to 182,000 by nightfall, but getting people back online was proving to be a slow process.

With CMP workers forced to keep their distance from each other in the wake of COVID-19, CMP said it will likely take more than a day to get power restored to everyone. CMP had 100 internal crews and more than 130 contractors and crews from its sister companies working to restore power after the storm and said it hoped to add more.

“We understand that people are working and learning from home and we will work constantly and safely to restore their power,” CMP spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett said. “We are practicing  social distancing in the field to protect our employees and contractors. This means traveling to work sites in several vehicles and always being aware of proximity to others in the field.  This takes a little more thought and care than in ‘normal’ times while in the field.”

Hartnett said the power company is working with local emergency management officials on local priorities for clearing roads of downed wires and trees. In some northern area towns, such as Dover, Skowhegan and Farmington, many of the roads were not yet plowed as of 8:30 a.m. Friday, according to CMP.

“With the pandemic we must prioritize access to hospitals and medical facilities as well as food distribution sites,” she said. “Of course restoring power to these facilities is also a priority and all hospitals in our service areas currently have power.”

Just under 200,000 customers remained without power at 11 a.m. Friday, the peak number of CMP outages for this storm. Outages were spread evenly across most counties, with the exception of York County, which saw very few. Androscoggin County had just under 20,000 outages. Franklin County had just under 16,000 and Oxford County had about 12,000. CMP said it could not provide customers with specific restoration times Friday morning.

Most towns got several inches of snow — an unusual amount for an April storm, according to the National Weather Service in Gray.

“To get some of these totals is a little bit more uncommon, especially in coastal areas,” meteorologist Hunter Tubbs said.

The storm had been expected to drop most snow in northern Maine. Instead, the storm, which included bands of intense snow, spread across most of the state.

By Friday morning, Hartford had 14 inches, Peru had 10.8 inches, Farmington had 9 inches, Lewiston had 8.5 inches and Bethel had 7.5 inches. Snow continued in some areas through the morning.

The heavy snow was expected to end for most places Friday morning, replaced by scattered rain and snow showers, though another couple of inches of snow were expected for the Rangeley area. All towns could face another challenge in the evening: 30 mph winds.

“It’s possible there could be a few more outages,” Tubbs said.

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