A powerful storm Monday night and Tuesday morning downed trees, dropped wires into roadways and brought flooding to the tri-county area.
Many residents and businesses were plunged into darkness by power outages that spanned central Maine.
By midmorning Tuesday, in Androscoggin County, 2,403 out of nearly 57,000 Central Maine Power customers were still without electricity power. By Tuesday evening, that number had been reduced to 1,281.
In Oxford County, the utility company reported 1,677 out of 41,441 customers had still lost power, as well as 117 out of 23,504 customers in Franklin County. Power was restored to all customers by Tuesday evening.
The number of outages for Central Maine Power customers peaked at 91,137 at 3 a.m. Tuesday, with a total of 126,000 customers affected. On Tuesday morning, 68,400 remained without power as of 10 a.m., according to CMP spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett.
The Androscoggin River rushes over Great Falls in Auburn on Tuesday after a heavy rainstorm. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
More than 370 line crews and 160 tree crews were working across the Central Maine Power’s service territory Tuesday, restoring outages caused by the heavy winds and rain, according to CMP .
CMP promised it would restore power to the “vast majority” of its customers by Tuesday night, but conceded customers in some towns would likely have to wait another day before they will be able to turn on their lights.
The utility’s crews restored power to 100,000 customers during the day, CMP said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
By 5 p.m., the number of customers without power had been reduced to 21,614, according to the company’s outage site.
CMP said because of the damage the storm caused to its power transmission system, customers in Belgrade, Brunswick, Harpswell and Litchfield would likely remain without power until Wednesday.
Some communities in Lincoln and Waldo counties will also have to wait another day before power can be restored, according to CMP.
It could take even longer than Wednesday to restore power to remote homes and camps, according to the utility.
CMP officials said Tuesday the company was focused on repairing systems that can restore electricity at once to the most customers.
In addition to CMP crews and in-state contractors, the company has secured the assistance of crews from its sister company in Connecticut, and from Vermont, New Jersey and Canada. With additional customer service and company support staff, there were roughly 1,260 workers involved in the restoration effort.
Among the storm-related damage early Tuesday morning, flooding was reported on Roxbury Pond Road in Andover.
In Auburn, downed wires were reported on Webster Road.
Trees were reported in the roadway in Lewiston and Waterford late Monday night.
Wires were reported on roads in Sabattus and Durham.
Portland Press Herald staff writer Dennis Hoey contributed to this report.
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