As the season’s first significant snowstorm blanketed the region Friday night into Saturday, it knocked out power to more than 100,000 Central Maine Power customers.
By Saturday afternoon, CMP reported power restoration to around 43,000 customers. Around 108,700 customers overall were affected, leaving 65,000 without power as of 5:55 p.m.
Parking bans led to over 100 vehicles being towed throughout Lewiston and Auburn Friday evening and early Saturday as weather and accidents continue to affect central and southern Maine.
Snow accumulations reached 4 inches in some areas of Androscoggin County and as much as 18 inches in others by dawn. Maine was under a winter storm warning at 10:12 a.m. Saturday and the National Weather Service predicted an additional 1 to 3 inches of snow accumulations in the Lewiston-Auburn area before the warning was expected to end at 12 a.m. Sunday morning.
Central Maine Power released a statement noting crews are doing everything they can to get power restored; but many communities remain impassable. CMP Electric Operations Director Kerri Therriault said over 1,000 resources including 200 CMP lineworkers, 220 contract lineworkers and 238 tree workers are out on the system with 90 backup lineworkers set to arrive later in the evening and 28 digger trucks currently replacing down utility poles.
“This will be a multiple day restoration effort and some customers may be out of power until late Monday evening or early Tuesday in some of the hardest hit, more remote areas,” Therriault said.
As of 5:55 p.m. Saturday, CMP reported 13,472 customers without power in Androscoggin County; 10,057 in Cumberland County; 2,977 in Franklin County; 6,928 in Kennebec County; and 20,827 in Oxford County.
Auburn had 2,683 customers and Lewiston had 1,942 without power at 5:55 p.m. All streets were still being assessed by early afternoon as the number of outages continued to fluctuate throughout the area. Other towns in Androscoggin County with significant outages include Turner with 1,859 offline at 5:55 p.m.; Poland, 1,924; Greene, 1,032; Leeds, 906; Durham, 185; Minot, 641; Livermore Falls, 528; Livermore 550; Sabattus, 475; Mechanic Falls, 316; Wales, 331; and Lisbon, 87. Fayette, Hartford, Hebron, Jay and New Gloucester also have a few customers offline.
A tractor trailer rolled onto its side Friday night on Sawyer Road in Greene. Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department
Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson said deputies have been responding to accidents “call to call” since Friday evening. Accidents on Sawyer Road in Green and Route 197 in Wales led to road closures that opened back up as of 8:25 a.m. Saturday.
Greene’s accident brought emergency crews out to a tractor trailer on its side. The cab of the truck came to a rest upright on an embankment and the trailer was severely twisted across the width of Sawyer Road. At that point on Friday, the area had about 1 inch of snow accumulation to which officials attributed the crash.
The Auburn Walmart was closed all day Saturday due to the outage. Marla Hoffman/Sun Journal
The Auburn Walmart parking lot was a day-long rotation of vehicles arriving to shop and leaving upon learning the store was closed. One Lowe’s employee told the Sun Journal her store and the Walmart across the way were without power around 9 a.m. Saturday. She said Lowe’s generator kicked on shortly after her arrival, but Walmart remained without power the entire day. A Walmart store manager said their store was without power starting at 11 a.m. They did not say whether their store had a backup generator or whether any food was lost.
Lewiston Police Department Lt. Derrick St. Laurent said a parking ban went into effect 1 a.m. Saturday in efforts to get out ahead of a storm that came later than forecasted. The biggest reason tows started promptly at 1 a.m. was in consideration of tow-truck drivers who did not want to wait until big drifts blocked their way and wanted to get out of the way of plow trucks awaiting removal. The ban ended 1 p.m. Saturday.
“We do everything we can to let people know a parking ban is going into effect. We use social media, our webpage. We tried our best to let people know ahead of time they would have to move their vehicles.”
Auburn’s parking ban started 9 p.m. Friday for similar reasons and tows have been carried out ever since. Auburn police said via social media there were about a dozen accidents 6 a.m. and onward with no serious injuries and many vehicles off the road. The city urged residents to follow the ban until it ends 9 p.m. Saturday.
“As ‘first storms of the season’ go, that was a pretty good one,” Auburn police said in a Facebook post, “And it’s not quite over yet. There are many power lines and tree limbs down. We encourage residents to stay safe at home and off the roadways to give Auburn Public Works a chance to do what they do they best.”
Some of Androscoggin County’s streets have estimated times for power restoration. Residents can check CMP’s outage list to see when power is expected to be restored to a particular street. They are organized by county, town and street a twww.cmpco.com/wps/portal/cmp/outages/reportorviewoutage/viewoutagelist/.
Officials say snow is likely to continue into the evening followed by a 70% chance for snow showers past midnight. The National Weather Service predicts little accumulation going into Sunday with temperatures expected to stay in the upper 20s.
Forecasts for the rest of the week bounce between mid-20s and mid-30s for temperatures, heavy gusts Sunday and Monday, and mostly sunny until Thursday night when chances of snow reach 70%. Friday will bring an 80% chance of snow in the morning and rain at night.
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