WILTON — Nearly 3,000 Central Maine Power customers in eight towns and two townships lost power during Monday afternoon’s rain storm.
But the cause wasn’t the weather or a nearly simultaneous traffic accident on Route 2 in East Dixfield that felled power lines onto the road.
“Someone dropped a tree on a major power line, and it wiped the whole town out,” Lucille Porter, Wilton Police administrative assistant, said Tuesday morning.
The tree-felling accident in Wilton cut the power at 2:15 p.m. for 2,943 customers in Carthage, Chesterville, Farmington, Jay, Phillips, Temple, Weld and Wilton and Perkins and Washington townships, CMP spokeswoman Gail Rice said Tuesday morning.
“It was the primary of a major line, so it affected a lot of customers on three different circuits,” Rice said. “We got 748 (customers) back pretty quickly by 2:45 p.m. and got the rest back just before 5.”
Wilton police said Monday that power came back and went out a few times and did the same on Tuesday morning before everything was fine again.
At about 3 p.m. Monday on Main Street and Route 2 in Wilton, signs on several darkened businesses told customers they were closed due to a power outage.
Six miles away from Wilton and at about 2:14 p.m. on Monday, Melvin Smith, 71, of Carthage, was driving a 2004 Ford Ranger west on Route 2 when police say he lost control of the pickup truck owned by R.S. Osgood and Sons Inc., a farm, lawn and garden equipment store.
“He struck a mailbox and then crossed the center line, went off the road into a field and struck a utility pole somehow,” investigating Wilton Officer Brandi Alton said on Tuesday morning.
She said Smith was checked for injuries by NorthStar Ambulance but was unharmed. Alton, who was patrolling in East Dixfield at the time and got there quickly, said the accident remains under investigation. Dixfield police assisted.
East Dixfield firefighters shut down the road, rerouting traffic around the area for 30 minutes until a CMP lineman could cut the power, she said. After that, traffic was limited to one lane while the damage was cleared.
Alton said the road wasn’t slippery at the time of the accident.
She estimated damage to the truck’s front end at $1,000.
On Tuesday morning, traffic was again limited to one lane while a CMP crew installed a new pole and reattached lines.
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