An offshore storm that whipped up fierce winds Friday in southern Maine and in southern New England knocked out power to thousands of Mainers.
Most of those affected were Central Maine Power customers in southern and midcoast Maine. As of late Saturday morning, CMP had more than 6,100 customers without electricity, of which more than 4,000 were in Cumberland County. Emera Maine reported it had more than 700 customers without power, the vast majority of them in Bangor and abutting towns.
By Saturday evening, CMP had reduced its number of outages to roughly 400 while Emera only reported two.
[At least six dead as Nor’easter slams East Coast with violent wind, rain, snow and floods]
Peak monthly tides have aggravated the damaging effects of the storm surge. The National Weather issued a coastal flood warning from late Saturday night to early Sunday morning for Rockingham County in New Hampshire and York County in Maine. The weather service issued a coastal flooding advisory for Cumberland County for the same time period, during which high tide is scheduled to crest in southern Maine.
“While water levels are not expected to be as high as during the past three high tides, areas already weakened or damaged from previous flooding will be susceptible to a pounding high surf,” the weather service wrote in the warning. “The long period swell will lead to splash-over and coastal erosion.”
A rapid decrease in atmospheric pressure as the offshore storm passed the East Coast on Friday resulted in a meteorological phenomenon known as bombogenesis, classifying the storm as a “bomb cyclone.”
[Travel misery continues on East Coast in wake of nor’easter]
It caused severe damage in mid-Atlantic states and in southern New England. As many as half a dozen people are believed to have been killed, primarily by trees or heavy limbs falling to the ground, and nearly two million people were estimated to have lost power.
No deaths from the storm have been reported in Maine.
In southern Maine, a front-end loader was used to rescue a mother and child trapped in a stalled van in flood waters in Wells, according to The Associated Press.
WGME reported Friday that the winds and waves had caused the foundation of a beachfront home in Saco near Camp Ellis to partially collapse.
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