Maine’s two largest utilities say they’re doing everything they can to safely and quickly restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers still in the dark. During a press briefing Tuesday morning, they said they expect to make significant progress in the next day or two, but it could be Saturday before the work is close to being complete.
As of 7:30 Wednesday morning, Maine utilities were reporting about 260,000 customers still without electricity - 215,000 of them in Central Maine Power's territory, and 45,000 served by Emera Maine.
Mainers proved they were resilient during the infamous ice storm of 1998, when some customers were out of power for as long as three weeks. But back then, 347,000 homes and businesses were plunged into darkness. Sunday night’s tropical storm knocked out power to nearly 500,000 across the state, and damage was unprecedented.
“Folks, this storm was massive, as you know. It caused a larger number of outages across the state than Ice Storm ‘98, which is amazing,” says Peter Rogers, acting director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency. “I’m happy to report that through years of training and exercise, working with our local partners, networking, this response has been much better and it’s working very well.”
By midafternoon Tuesday, the number of Central Maine Power customers with outages was about 286,000, and the number of Emera customers had dropped below 60,000.
In Bangor, Assistant Fire Chief Matthew Costello says first responders are under considerably less stress than they were at the height of Monday’s storm.
“Yesterday was the day that taxed all the resources out,” he says. “The City of Bangor Fire Department probably responded to more than 70 emergency calls during the height of the storm. So it taxed us out pretty severely. We had calls stacked up. We had no resources to keep sending out to some of the calls. Cops were responding to calls. Ambulances were responding to calls.”
Costello says emergency crews are making headway, but dangerous conditions are expected to persist through Friday.
“There’s a lot of trees still down, there’s a lot of power lines down. So, I guess I ask the public, like they tell you, any power line, treat it as though it might be a hazard. Do not get near the power line until the utility crews can take care of it,” he says.
As of Tuesday morning, Katelyn Schertzer of Durham says her house was blocked on both sides of the road by downed trees.
“The tree in between our house and the neighbor’s house fell down, and it like, fell on top of the telephone pole wire, ripped off the top of that, and pulled the electrical box right off of our house,” she says.
CMP typically has about 200 lineworkers at its disposal. But company president and CEO Sara Burns says planning for the recent storm began a week ago, and hundreds of reinforcements began arriving into Maine Tuesday morning.
“Yesterday we added another 100 line crews. Today we’re gonna add over 600 line crews driving into Maine today and another 300 tree crews and assessors. So we expect to make major progress today. We have mobilized hundreds behind CMP and we will work around the clock,” she says.
Burns urged customers to be patient and to refrain from approaching line crews while they’re working, because it interrupts restoration efforts. Burns says most of CMP’s customer service area should be back to normal in a few days.
“We expect to have the vast majority of our customers on by Saturday night. And when I say ‘vast majority,’ the exceptions could be those long camp lines where we go down a mile road to get to one house and places that today we have no access to,” she says.
Emera is also expecting to have most of its customers back online by Saturday night. Company president and CEO Alan Richardson says helicopter assessments from the air should provide a better idea of the extent of the damage in its service area, but he says progress is happening quickly.
“Our thinking is perhaps as many as half back on today. Ninety percent, let’s say, by end of day Thursday, and then completing Saturday. So, Saturday being the last day of the event for most people,” he says.
In the meantime, MEMA has been working to distribute generators to hospitals and other facilities that need them. Homeowners who have portable generators, says state toxicologist Andy Smith of the Maine CDC, are reminded to take the following precautions.
“You need to make sure you know how to use it safely, you’re following the instructions. It’s outside if it’s a portable generator, 15 feet away from the house. A single generator makes enough carbon monoxide as 100 automobiles. So, we want to make sure everyone’s safe and we don’t have any poisonings,” he says.
Costello in Bangor says to keep a close eye on any candles used inside the home.
“If you’re using candles at night, please do not leave them unattended,” he says. “Make sure if you leave the room or leave the area, make sure the candle is out. That’s a fear I have today, that people went to work this morning and forgot and left their candles on and hopefully that’s not going to happen.”
During the 1998 ice storm, several people were admitted to the ER with carbon monoxide poisoning in the first few days of the event. But the weather is warmer this time of year, and officials say that seems to be helping customers and utility crews cope better with the aftermath.
Still, to be on the safe side, officials also asking everyone to check on their friends and neighbors as the outages continue into a third day and beyond.
City officials in Bangor, along with those in several other Maine communities, urged parents to consider celebrating Halloween on Friday, when city streets are expected to be better lit than they currently are.
For a list of shelters statewide, click here. Maine Public reporters A.J. Higgins and Patty Wight contributed to this story.
This story was originally published Oct. 31, 2017 at 2:40 p.m. ET.
