BANGOR, Maine — High winds and heavy gusts knocked out power to more than 7,300 people in Penobscot, Hancock and Washington counties on Monday.
But Emera Maine had made significant headway in its effort to restore service by late afternoon, and by 8 p.m., it was reporting only 115 customers still without service, about half of those in the Corinth-Hudson area, according to the live outage map on the utility’s website.
Winds were gusting at between 30 and 40 mph late Monday morning in northern and Down East Maine, according to the National Weather Service office in Caribou. The higher than normal winds were caused by a low pressure system and not related to Hurricane Matthew, which hammered the southeastern seaboard from Florida to North Carolina over the weekend.
Tree limbs that fell on wires Monday morning had knocked out power to traffic lights on Main Street and to homes and businesses in neighboring streets in Bangor, according to an Emera Maine news release issued shortly after noon.
About 2,500 meters were affected in Bangor on Cedar, Chester, Third, Union and Walter streets until about 1:30 p.m., when power was restored.
Meanwhile, residents and businesses in Hancock County were among the hardest hit early Monday afternoon, when more than 4,600 customers lost power — about 3,500 of them on Mount Desert Island and the Blue Hill peninsula.
Service was restored to most of those customers by late Monday afternoon, though scattered outages continued to occur.
Central Maine Power reported about 1:40 p.m. that about 700 of its customers were without power in central and southern Maine. The numbers fluctuated wildly throughout the day. As of late afternoon, the number had increased to about 1,045, but by 8 p.m., the tally had dropped to 132, according to that utility’s outage information web page.
The National Weather Service Caribou office expected the winds to die down to between 5 and 10 mph around sunset Monday.
Low temperatures, however, were expected overnight, with a freeze warning in effect into Tuesday for southern Oxford County, including Bethel, while a frost advisory was issued for parts of Franklin, York, Somerset, Cumberland, Kennebec, Waldo and Androscoggin counties.
Nice fall weather with sunny days and lighter winds are expected for the next few days, according to the weather service.
BDN writer Dawn Gagnon contributed to this report.
Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.