Maine utility officials keep chipping away at the remaining power outages left by Tropical Storm Irene and about 40,000 customers — about 5,000 fewer than this morning — are still without service.

Central Maine Power Co. spokesman John Carroll said that most of the remaining outages are in the far southern counties, York and Cumberland. About 280,000 CMP customers had lost electrical service at one time or another due to the weekend storm.

Farther north and east, Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. says power’s been restored to all but 1,200 customers, but it’s not clear how many of those are storm-related.

In the meantime, Bangor Hydro’s sent backup repair crews south to help CMP crews.

 

10:27 a.m.

Central Maine Power Co. has restored electricity to all but 44,000 homes and businesses that lost power due to Tropical Storm Irene.

A total of 280,000 CMP customers lost service as a result of the storm Sunday. The outages peaked about 9 p.m. Sunday, when 187,000 customers were without power.

As of 9 a.m. today, there were nearly 14,800 customers in Cumberland County and 10,800 customers in York County waiting for CMP to restore their power, according to a news release from the utility company.

The number of CMP customers reporting outages in other counties were: Oxford, 6,778; Kennebec, 5,903; Androscoggin, 3,927; Lincoln, 768; Sagadahoc, 635; Waldo, 564; Franklin, 226; Somerset, 42; Knox, 6; Penobscot, 3.