Crews from Irby Construction Company out of Mississippi work on lines along Maine Street in Kennebunkport on Saturday. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Thousands of Mainers were without power on Christmas, following a powerful storm Friday that tore through the state, delivering high winds, rain, and flooding.
Utility workers have made a big dent in restoring power to Maine homes over the weekend, returning electricity to more than 270,000 customers who lost electricity at some point Friday.
But by Sunday night there were still almost 40,300 households still waiting for power, in bitter-cold temperatures.
That includes roughly 24,300 Central Maine Power customers in the south and central portion of the state and 16,000 Versant Power customers in the northern and eastern portions of the state.
Maine’s utility companies have warned customers that restoring power to all customers will take days.
A spokesperson for CMP said Sunday there were about 2,000 workers out on Christmas, restoring power to populated outage areas and more remote communities.
“We are entering that stage of restoration in more remote areas where every repair made to the system restores fewer customers but takes as long to perform as those repairs that restore circuits with hundreds or thousands of customers,” said CMP President and CEO Joe Purington in a statement Sunday. “We will remain in the field night and day adding even more crews to get the vast majority of customers back on by Tuesday night. We truly appreciate the support our customers have shown for our hard-working line and tree workers especially knowing that some of them remain out of power.”
Versant Power said Sunday that the company will have service restored to 80% of its households, including all of those in northern Penobscot County, Island Falls, and the Fort Kent area, by Sunday at 10 p.m., except for the customers who live in remote areas, seasonal areas or have damage that requires an electrician.
Versant Power said it hopes to restore power to all of its customers by Thursday.
Part of Webhannet Drive is closed in Wells on Saturday because of damage from Friday’s storm surge. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Of the New England states, Maine’s utilities were hardest hit by the storm that traveled across the country last week, according to the Associated Press.
York and Cumberland counties still have among the highest power outages.
As of Sunday evening, 5,900 CMP customers were still without power in Cumberland County, and nearly 7,800 in York County.
The storm, which raged from late Thursday through Friday, delivered historic wind gusts and flooding that damaged property and took down trees and power lines.
In Portland, the temperature on Sunday was 15 degrees, with a wind chill of about two degrees. The National Weather Service in Gray said Christmas Day would be cold and breezy, with a high in the 20s.
Friday, wind gusts reached 64 miles per hour in Portland, 59 miles per hour in interior Gray, and winds as high as 70 to 80 miles per hour were recorded on an island weather station near Rockland, NWS meteorologist Jon Palmer said.
Staff writer Emily Allen contributed to this report.
This story will be updated.
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