As the area’s first significant snowfall came down Wednesday morning, last week’s ice storm became just a memory for local public works and public safety departments, which were busy taking on the beginning of storm season.

Though residents in some areas of the state the Dec. 12 storm to the epic ice storm of 1998, in Westbrook, Gorham and Buxton, power outages and downed trees were dealt with relatively easily.

“Compared to the ice storm 10 years ago, it was minor,” said Gorham Fire Chief Bob Lefebvre, citing many downed utility poles and weeks-long power outages as the main differences between the ice storm a decade ago and last week’s.

He said there were no broken utility poles in Gorham and power was almost completely restored throughout the town by Sunday.

Central Maine Power Co. sent its crews out for the fourth straight day of restoration work Monday in York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, and Lincoln counties. About 225,000 customers in the state lost power as a result of the storm.

According to CMP spokeswoman Gail Rice, at the storm’s peak, the Portland service area, which includes Westbrook and Gorham, had 58,000 customers without power. In the Alfred service area, which includes Buxton, 84,000 outages were reported.

Rice said 2,600 customers in 24 York County towns remained without power Wednesday morning. Power had already been completely restored to Buxton customers.

“The company continues working toward its goal to get the last of these customers back on by tonight,” said spokesman John

Carroll. “The weather today will slow things somewhat, but a big concern will be the safety of our crews on the roadside. It will be especially helpful if drivers can slow down and give them plenty of clearance as they pass.”

Coastal Maine from Kittery north to Saco and west to Sanford was impacted the heaviest during the Dec. 12 ice storm. York County Emergency Management Director Bob Bohlmann rated the storm an 8 on a scale of 10 in severity.

“It was no easier” than 1998, said Bohlmann, who has been involved in emergency management for 54 years. “It was almost the same storm and almost as bad in this county – maybe worse.”

“We have crews helping [Central Maine Power workers] from as far away as Michigan, New York and Canada,” said Rice.

Gorham, Buxton and Westbrook each had emergency shelters, but they were far from overcrowded.

Westbrook Police Chief Bill Baker said about 70 people came through the shelter set up at Westbrook High School. According to Lefebvre, about 40 people used the shelter at Gorham Middle School for food or hot showers, but only about 10 ended up staying overnight.

Despite the fact that York County was hit harder than Cumberland, Sheridan Bennett, Buxton’s emergency management agency director, said “not a soul” came through the town’s shelter, which was set up through Monday at Groveville Fire Station.

“I guess it’s just old Maine Yankee housekeeping,” he said. “They just didn’t want to budge.”

Bennett said he checked on some of the town’s senior citizens who lost power, including some 40 residents of senior housing complex Elwell Farms. Though about 10 of them made arrangements with relatives, he said, the rest just wanted to stay put. The fire department supplied them with water and Central Maine Power came quickly to restore power.

Baker said Central Maine Power was also quick to respond to an outage at Longfellow Place, a retirement home in Westbrook, helping the city avoid having to evacuate its 150 residents.

In Gorham, one elderly couple that stayed in ended up paying a price for it. Lefebvre said the couple suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, because they had been running a gasoline-powered generator in the basement of the home. Gorham Rescue brought them to the hospital Friday morning, and they were released later that day.

“If you’re going to run a generator, it needs to be outdoors,” Lefebvre said.

According to Bohlmann, as many as six fires broke out in York County over the weekend from the “improper use of materials” as people used equipment inappropriately in an effort to stay warm.

“The biggest thing is safety, safety, safety,” said Bohlmann.

Late Monday afternoon, President Bush issued an Emergency Declaration for York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox and Waldo counties. This declaration by the federal government enables the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide emergency response assistance for the affected counties.

Direct federal assistance would bring federal resources such as generators and shelter supplies, as well as federal personnel, to Maine should they be needed in the final stage of the emergency response. The federal government will pay 75 percent of the costs associated with such assistance.

In Westbrook, where Public Services Director Tom Eldridge said the ice storm “didn’t bother us too, too much,” efforts have refocused to another kind of storm.

“Sounds like a lot of snow in the next week,” he said Wednesday. “It’s going to be busy.”