COLUMBIA — A logging accident was responsible for a power outage that left more than 5,000 Emera Maine customers in Washington County without electricity for a couple of hours Saturday, utility officials said Sunday.
The power outage was caused when logging activity contacted a power line between Epping and Columbia Falls, near Epping Road, Emera Maine spokesman Bob Potts said Sunday.
The affected power line tripped out at 6:46 a.m., and using a backup diesel generator, power was restored to Emera Maine customers in Eastport by 7:40 a.m.
The accident also impacted customers in the greater Machias area and included East Machias, Whiting, Cutler and Lubec.
Those customers lost power at about 7:45 a.m. — during subzero temperatures — although power was fully restored by about 9:15 a.m.
Even though utility workers did not immediately determine the cause of the outage, they were able to reroute circuits in order to restore power.
“We have redundant lines in much of that area,” Potts said Saturday, “which is great, obviously, for situations exactly like this.”
There were no injuries.
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