Crews make progress, but more than 125,000 still without power in Maine

Matt Wyman of Meadowcrest Tree Service lowers a section of tree trunk to a wood chipper along Limerick Road in Arundel on Friday morning. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Nearly 225,000 Central Maine Power customers had their electricity restored by Saturday morning, after a two-day spring nor’easter left the region, leaving roughly 125,000 customers still without power.

“We’re finally under the 200,000 mark,” CMP spokesman Jon Breed said Friday afternoon.

York County, with nearly 44,000 outages according to CMP’s website as of noon Saturday, and Cumberland County, which had more than 35,000 outages, were hit the hardest. Oxford County, with almost 14,500 power outages, and Androscoggin, at nearly 12,000, also were affected by heavy snow that brought down tree limbs and wires and damaged utility poles.

Breed said outages in York County could extend into early next week.

Katelyn Ordway, who lives in Sanford with three children and a dog, said Friday evening she’s been without power since 7 a.m. Thursday and hasn’t noticed a presence by the utility.

“I’ve driven around twice today and have yet to see a CMP truck,” she said.

Ordway said crews have taken down trees but have not repaired electric lines. She’ll travel Saturday to a house in nearby New Hampshire “at least to take a shower,” she said.

Megan Arsenault, deputy director at the York County Emergency Management Agency, said many roads are still impassable, with downed trees and wires hampering efforts to restore power. That’s not an issue, though, for Ordway, who said she lives “one minute from Main Street.”

Arsenault said CMP and the Emergency Management Agency have identified priorities such as clearing roads for first responders and restoring power to health care facilities.

CMP’s first message to customers is that it’s assessing the damage. Breed said 2,644 incidents were reported as of Friday morning, corresponding to the approximately 350,000 outages reported at the peak of the storm Thursday. Each incident requires an inspection to determine what’s needed to get electricity back on, Breed said.

Source: Central Maine Power

At times, three or four crews may be needed to assess the damage by removing and cutting up trees, replacing or fixing a pole and completing other jobs, he said.

Avangrid, the parent company of CMP, deployed to Maine 103 line workers, 81 tree crews, 41 bucket and digger derrick trucks and 45 support staff that includes damage assessors and crew guides, from its United Illuminating subsidiary in Connecticut.

The storm, which started Wednesday evening and wrapped up Friday morning, dumped more than a foot of snow in some areas of southern Maine.

Thursday’s storm came less than two weeks after a powerful snow and ice storm knocked out power to 200,000 CMP customers, some of whom waited days for power to be restored.

“The damage from these fallen trees is significant, and our arborists have observed that this is some of the worst snow loading on trees they have seen in more than a decade,” Breed said Thursday.

At the height of outages, Versant Power reported nearly 16,000 customers were without power at 2 p.m. Thursday. More than 500 were still in the dark at noon Saturday. The company said it was also expecting restoration work to continue through the weekend.

A tree limb dangles from power lines on First Avenue in Scarborough on Thursday evening. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Anna Henderson, general manager of the Kennebunk Light and Power District, said Friday night that outages numbered fewer than a “couple hundred,” down from about 1,000 of its 7,000 customers at the storm’s peak. Two line crews that are on hand were augmented by seven more from elsewhere in New England, she said.

SNOW TOTALS

The amount of snow that fell between Wednesday night and Friday morning varied widely across southern and central Maine, but most areas received at least 6 inches, according to the National Weather Service in Gray.

In Cumberland County, 18 inches fell in Gray and Raymond, while Cumberland Center and New Gloucester topped out at 17 inches. Closer to the coast, the weather service received reports of 8 inches in South Portland and at the Portland International Jetport. Suburbs north of Portland saw just over a foot of snow by the time the storm moved out Friday morning.

Shapleigh hit the snow jackpot in York County with 21.5 inches, while Acton had just under 20 inches. Other totals include 18.4 inches in Hollis, 15 inches in Sanford and 7.6 inches in Saco. Kittery Point got just 1.2 inches, according to a weather service report.

Snow totals in Kennebec County ranged from 11 inches in Hallowell to 17 inches in Oakland. Over in Androscoggin County, Poland saw 20.6 inches of snow, while 14.5 inches was reported in Auburn and 10 inches in Livermore Falls.

MILDER WEATHER ON ITS WAY

The snow turned to rain Friday as temperatures rose. The National Weather Service says precipitation will end by Sunday and temperatures Monday moving into the low 50s to near 60 degrees.

In Portland, the nor’easter complicated the cleanup of extensive tree damage that crews have faced since a March 24 ice storm that caused damage not seen since 1998, said city spokesperson Jessica Grondin.

The city received more than 400 tree damage reports, many that involved large trees or limbs that each took a day or more to remove, Grondin said. There are thousands of unreported limbs and branches that came down in the public right of way that need to be collected, she said.

The Parks, Recreation and Facilities and Public Works crews have been working in coordination with private contractors to clean up the damage. Their focus remains on clearing hazards, Grondin said.

The storm “complicated matters” and will set city officials back another week or so for clean up efforts, she said. The city must recommission winter equipment used for tree cleanup to be adapted for winter operations and snow removal, Grondin said. When that’s completed Portland will put its equipment to use for debris cleanup.

@portlandpressheraldCentral Maine Power Co. says it expects power outages to stretch into early next week “for some customers in hardest-hit areas.” About 48% of CMP customers – 322,000 – were in the dark around 2 p.m. Read more at pressherald.com♬ original sound – Portland Press Herald

Ethan Hipple, director of the Parks, Recreation and Facilities Department, said residents can help by taking their own debris to Riverside Recycling. Dragging debris onto the streets will add to the problem, he said.

CLOSURES

For the fifth time in the Sea Dogs’ 31-year history, the opening day game has been postponed because of snow.

The Sea Dogs announced that the games scheduled for Friday and Saturday had to be postponed because of poor field conditions. No makeup dates have been announced. The team will continue to evaluate field conditions and will make a decision about Sunday’s 1 p.m. game later this weekend.

Staff Writer Stephen Singer contributed to this report.