Utility companies have restored power to most customers who lost it during storms that brought heavy snow and strong winds to Maine over the past five days, reducing the number of outages from more than 36,000 Tuesday morning to roughly 6,600 by Tuesday night.

Central Maine Power was reporting 1,610 customers without power as of 9 p.m., down from more than 16,000 the night before. Penobscot had the most outages with 1,037. Southern Maine was spared from widespread outages: all of York County had power and Cumberland was reporting one outage by 9 p.m.

Emera Maine, which serves northern and Down East areas, reported that 5,017 customers were still without power as of 9 p.m., including 1,865 on hard-hit Deer Isle. Crews restored service to more than 20,000 customers Tuesday, including 99 percent of those affected by last week’s snowstorm.

About 100 crews will continue working to restore service to remaining customers Wednesday, Emera promised on its website. The utility predicted nearly all of its customers will have power by the end of Wednesday.

Utility crews that have been working to restore power knocked out in last week’s snowstorm had faced difficult conditions Monday. Strong wind gusts made it difficult for workers to make repairs. Half of the line resources CMP had recruited from out of state had to return home to prepare for Monday’s storm.

“This has been a very challenging day for every worker in the field,” CMP President Doug Herling said Monday. “We will not stop until all outages are restored. We must prioritize the safety of our employees and contractors.”

Workers also were hampered by physical distancing guidelines in place because of the coronavirus pandemic that affected the routines and procedures they normally use to restore power.

 

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