Thousands of people are without power Sunday morning after ice and snow from a major storm brought down trees and powerlines overnight.
The damage is primarily in Maine’s southern counties. Central Maine Power had 172,158 households without power, including nearly half of Cumberland County at 85,332 and more than a third of York at 40,566. Sagadahoc had 14,700 and Lincoln had 12,884 as of 2 p.m. Sunday.
Nearly half of Waldo County, 11,354, awoke to no power as well. Knox County had 3,129 and Hancock had 3,455 reported outages.
CMP’s outages represented nearly a quarter of its customers, but the company was making progress by the afternoon.
The power company focused on the more than 250 requests from emergency management agencies to make downed power lines safe and other calls that needed immediate attention, but the road and working conditions were dangerous Saturday night, according to Jon Breed, spokesperson for CMP.
He said it would take the company several days to restore power in the hardest hit areas of the state.
“Damage to trees, poles, and wires was significant overnight on Saturday, and our assessors are taking stock of the damage (Sunday) so we can begin restoring power to our customers as quickly and as safely as possible,” Breed said.
The company had staged 150 line crews before the storm and expected another 200 crews to arrive Sunday to help them.
Versant’s territory was not hit as hard, with only 15,487 customers of its 166,195 total without power Sunday. Most of the outages were the 13,597 in Hancock County that Versant reported at 10 a.m. There were 1,564 in Penobscot, 318 in Washington and eight in Aroostook as well. By 2 p.m., a total of 4,094 were affected in Versant’s coverage area. Hancock had 2,936, Penobscot 1,157, Washington one and none in Aroostook.
Many roads are still covered with snow and ice, and secondary roads could have downed trees and wires. Authorities were advising people to be careful if they had to go out or if they planned to attend Maine Maple Sunday events.
The National Weather Service centers in Gray and Caribou reported that East Millinocket and Millinocket in Penobscot County had the highest snow totals at 29 and 28 inches, respectively, as reported by the public. Greenville in Piscataquis County had reports of 23 inches by the public and 19 inches by a trained spotter for the weather service. Aroostook had 24 inches in Fort Fairfield and Mars Hill, 10.5 in Van Buren, 8 in Frenchville and 7.2 in Madawaska
inches, followed closely by Bryant Pond in Oxford County at 14.5 inches. The least amount of snow was half an inch in Whiting.
Coastal towns tended to have lower snow accumulations at an average of 3 inches, although the Portland Jetport recorded 5 inches and Searsport 5.4. Western and central Maine got more snow than the coast, reporting anywhere from 6-9 inches.
Bangor reported varied depths in different parts of the city, but averaged 5 inches of snow and an inch of sleet.
Aroostook County had snow reports from one inch in Stockholm to 24 inches in Fort Fairfield and Mars Hill and 20 inches in Sherman. Presque Isle reported 7 inches, Caribou 5.5 and Houlton 5. In the St. John Valley, Van Buren had 10.5, Frenchville 8 and Madawaska 7.2 inches.
