Thousands of people are without power Sunday morning after ice and snow from a major storm brought down trees and powerlines overnight.
The damage is primarily in Maine’s southern counties. Central Maine Power had 184,095 households without power, including nearly half of Cumberland County at 87,302 and more than a third of York at 46,281. Sagadahoc had 15,766 and Lincoln had 13,405 as of 10 a.m. Sunday.
Nearly half of Waldo County, 11,925, awoke to no power as well. Knox County had 4,412 and Hancock had 4,572 reported outages.
CMP’s outages represent nearly a quarter of its customers, but the company was making some progress by 10 a.m.
The power company focused on the more than 250 requests from emergency management agencies to make downed power lines safe and other calls that needed immediate attention, but the road and working conditions were dangerous Saturday night, according to Jon Breed, spokesperson for CMP.
He said it would take the company several days to restore power in the hardest hit areas of the state.
“Damage to trees, poles, and wires was significant overnight on Saturday, and our assessors are taking stock of the damage (Sunday) so we can begin restoring power to our customers as quickly and as safely as possible,” Breed said.
The company had staged 150 line crews before the storm and expected another 200 crews to arrive Sunday to help them.
Versant’s territory was not hit as hard, with only 15,487 customers of its 166,195 total without power Sunday. Most of the outages were the 13,597 in Hancock County that Versant reported at 10 a.m. There were 1,564 in Penobscot, 318 in Washington and eight in Aroostook as well.
Many roads are still covered with snow and ice, and secondary roads could have downed trees and wires. Authorities were advising people to be careful if they had to go out or if they planned to attend Maine Maple Sunday events.
The National Weather Service centers in Gray and Caribou reported that Greenville in Piscataquis County had the highest snow total at 15 inches, followed closely by Bryant Pond in Oxford County at 14.5 inches. The least amount of snow was half an inch in Whiting.
Coastal towns tended to have lower snow accumulations at an average of 3 inches, although the Portland Jetport recorded 5 inches and Searsport 5.4. Western and central Maine got more snow than the coast, reporting anywhere from 6-9 inches.
Bangor reported varied depths in different parts of the city, but averaged 5 inches of snow and an inch of sleet.
Aroostook County had snow reports from one inch in Stockholm to 9.5 inches in Westfield. Presque Isle reported 7 inches, Caribou 5.5 and Houlton 5. There were no reports from the St. John Valley as of 10 a.m.