PORTLAND — Utility and road crews made progress restoring power and opening up roads today as local officials began compiling preliminary damage estimates from Tropical Storm Irene.

More than 88,000 homes and businesses were still without power this afternoon, down from more than 300,000 that lost electricity in Sunday’s storm. Officials said it could be several days before power is totally restored.

Power restoration has been slowed because the toppled trees have been large, heavy and difficult to remove to get access to power lines. The heavy rains washed out some roads and made for soft shoulder on others, creating unstable conditions for bucket trucks. Central Maine Power Co. had 220 broken utility poles, an unusually high number.

“It’s rare we’ve had a storm this destructive,” said CMP spokesman John Carroll. “It was big trees coming down, not just limbs. And a lot of roads have just been difficult to get into.”

The Maine Emergency Management Agency has asked towns and cities to submit reports estimating damages to roads, bridges and other public infrastructure, as well as the costs of debris removal and emergency response, said spokeswoman Lynette Miller. Officials will use those reports to determine if the state is eligible for federal disaster assistance.

So far, only the 14 municipalities in Androscoggin County have submitted anything, putting their preliminary estimate at $184,000. But the overall costs for the state will likely reach into the millions, based on experiences from previous storms.

Hurricane Bob came in at a $6 million disaster in 1991, Miller said. Irene was similar to Bob in some ways, she said, “but we can’t really compare because a lot of it will depend on where the most rain fell and where the worst winds were.”

Department of Transportation officials are considering their short- and long-term options to get traffic going again on Route 27 in western Maine after two bridges washed out near the entrance to the Sugarloaf ski resort, the second-busiest ski mountain in Maine. For now, people can get to Sugarloaf by using private back roads, but that probably won’t be good enough when ski season arrives in a few months.

“We’re working on solutions for both temporary and permanent fixes right now,” said spokesman Mark Latti. “We’re working to re-establish traffic patterns as soon as possible.”

The storm also resulted in damages to the state’s apple and grain crops, said Agriculture Commissioner Walt Whitcomb.

With apple growers ready to start harvesting, the high winds blew apples off fruit-laden limbs and uprooted trees. Much of the fruit that was left hanging was bruised by apples flying off other trees, Whitcomb said.

Grain crops such as wheat, barley and oats were also damaged by wind and driving rain blowing them to the ground.