A thunderstorm that ripped through Peaks Island late Friday afternoon causing damage to trees and buildings left much of the island without power and broke a 130-year-old rainfall record at the Portland International Jetport, drenching it with 1.52 inches of rain.

The downpour broke the 130-year-old record for the date of 1.3 inches, which had been set Aug. 26, 1892.

Winds of up to 57 miles per hour were reported on Peaks, which is part of Portland, at around 4:45 p.m., said Jon Palmer, a meteorologist with the weather service in Gray. The strong winds “were just shy of our severe thunderstorm criteria, which is 58 miles per hour that we classify as a severe thunderstorm,” Combs said.

Central Maine Power reported that more than 1,320 homes and businesses were without power on Peaks, Great Diamond and Little Diamond islands at around 8:30 p.m. Friday. CMP spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett said Saturday that power was mostly restored by 10 p.m. Friday.

“We weren’t able to get any equipment out there, we need a barge and the condition of the ocean wouldn’t allow us to send something over there. So we’ve got folks working there this morning,” Hartnett said. Power for the remaining customers was expected to be restored Saturday morning, she said.

There were several hundred storm-related outages in Falmouth and Cumberland on Friday night, but power was quickly restored. Peaks was among the few areas in Greater Portland heavily affected by outages caused by the storm.

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CMP reported a total of 1,780 customers without power in Cumberland County around 8:30 p.m. Friday night and just 1,855 without power among its 665,000 customers across Maine.

Shay Stewart-Bouley, a resident of Peaks, said she heard a loud “crack” during the rainstorm Friday afternoon, then saw that the large metal and fabric awning from the nearby Island Lobster Company had blown into the road, along with tree limbs and other debris. During the next couple of hours, residents and city workers had cleared enough storm debris from the roads to make them passable, she said. Peaks residents posted photos online of yellow caution tape across roads and a landscape littered with downed trees, branches and debris.

Photos on social media of storm damage in mainland Portland included a tree down on the Eastern Promenade, flooding on Forest Avenue and a tree that crashed through fence on Woodford Street.

Palmer, at the weather service, said thunderstorm warnings for much of southern New Hampshire as well as York, Cumberland and southern Oxford counties in Maine had been issued between 2 and 4 p.m. Friday. He said there were many reports of trees down in New Hampshire as well as reports of 2-inch hail in Carroll County, near the Maine border. He said there were reports of trees down in Maine, but not as many.


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