Thousands of residents across Maine were without power Monday as a powerful storm moved through New England, bringing snow, heavy rain and wind.
As of 4:50 p.m. Monday, at least 3,109 Central Maine Power customers across Cumberland, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, Kennebec, Oxford, Waldo, Knox and York counties were without power.
There were at least 1,047 customers without power in Brunswick and three customers in West Bath without power as of 4:45 p.m.
Power has been restored to all CMP customers in Freeport, Bath, Bowdoin and Topsham.
There were no power outages reported in Lisbon, Bowdoinham and Woolwich.
According to Sagadahoc County Sherrif’s Office, at least 15 car crashes were reported since morning in the county due to inclement weather. There were at least three crashes reported in Brunswick. However, department officials refused to share details about the accidents.
An on-duty dispatcher at Sagadahoc County Sherrif’s office said further details about the car crashes will be available Tuesday.
There were no weather-related crashes reported in Lisbon.
Wind gusts up to 65 mph and up to 1-3 inches of snowfall in some parts of the state were forecast.
The National Weather Service office in Gray on Sunday issued a high wind warning effective from 5 a.m. through 4 p.m. Monday.
Central Maine Power crews were responding to outages caused by the storm throughout the company’s service territory until late evening.
A total of 30,240 customers were impacted with a peak of 11,436.
CMP had at least 200 line workers deployed, with assistance from an additional 400 contracted line workers and 135 tree crews, according to the company’s press release.
Emily Spencer, corporate communications officer at CMP said they haven’t received a peak outage number yet.
“We are currently working on getting an estimated time of restorations for everybody,” said Spencer. “We expect that majority of customers will have power restored today. We will continue to work into the evening and through the night until each customer has their power restored.”
In a news release, CMP said it had “shifted its resources to the most heavily impacted areas to aid restoration efforts. In addition to the company’s 200 internal lineworkers, CMP received assistance from 400 external lineworkers and 135 tree crews.”
Versant Power was reporting 341 of 165,066 customers without electricity in eastern and northern Maine late afternoon Monday, according to the Portland Press Herald. The National Weather Service in Gray predicted heavy snowfall inland – as much as 3 inches per hour at times – with precipitation turning to rain along the coast. Gusts of up to 45 mph were reported along the coast.
Monday’s storm brought significant snowfall, strong thunderstorms and blustery winds to the northeastern U.S., according to a report from the Associated Press. Sleet and rain threatened Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and wind gusts in Boston were predicted to reach 70 mph. The winds spread a fire that destroyed a motel and two other structures in coastal Salisbury, Massachusetts, early Monday.
Multiple states reported heavy snowfall, and two people died Sunday in North Carolina when their car drove off the road. The roof of a dormitory partially collapsed in the state at Brevard College, with officials saying it broke under the weight of snow. There were no injuries.
Temperatures in Bath reached a relatively comfortable 46 degrees Monday. On Tuesday, the weather is expected to be partly sunny, with a high near 24 degrees.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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