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PORTLAND, Maine — A massive rainstorm drenched much of the state today, leading to flood warnings and street closures and causing some businesses and schools to shut their doors for the day.
Most Mainers were greeted by steady, heavy rain as they awoke Wednesday morning. And in parts of the state the downpour just kept getting heavier and heavier.
"Between 11 and 12, Portland had 2.22 inches of rainfall," says Tom Hawley with National Weather Service offices in Gray. "That's really when the stuff hit the fan so to speak down there in Portland with all the flooding they had."
A number of Portland businesses closed early Wednesday, and the University of Southern Maine shut all campus offices at lunchtime.
Several streets were also closed.
"Certainly Marginal Way around Whole Foods was hit hard, Park Avenue, Woodfords Corner, Forest Avenue, Forest Avenue around exit 6, Commercial Street," says City of Portland spokeswoman Jessica Grondin, who says extra police and fire department personnel were deployed to help out. "It was really hard to keep track it was coming in so fast, because of that one hour period where we got 2.2 inches of rain."
In some places cars were confronted with pond-size puddles two feet deep.
Much of Portland's working waterfront was also underwater as the rainfall combined with a high tide to threaten a number of wharfside businesses.
"I haven't seen rain like that in quite a while," says Harry Wright, bartender at J's Oyster Bar on Portland Pier, where he has worked for ten years.
Despite the fact that floodwaters were lapping at the outside of the building, J's stayed open for business.
"Not in my years here, we've never closed due to the flooding," Wright says. "Maybe inclement weather perhaps, but not due to the flooding."
The heavy rain, coupled with high winds, also took its toll on power customers, with about 15,000 Central Maine Power customers in the dark Wednesday afternoon.
CMP spokesperson Gail Rice says about 5,000 of those affected customers were in Sagadahoc County because of a flooded substation.
"There were cars parked nearby and we needed to shut down that substation in order for people to get their cars out of the area safely," she says.
Meanwhile Emera Maine, which serves much of northern and Down East Maine, reported about 10,000 customers without power at one point.
The National Weather Service's Tom Hawley says many parts of southern Maine, including Windham, Gorham and Lewiston, got more than 6 inches by midafternoon.
While conditions for the evening commute are much improved in the southern half of the state, Hawley says heavier rain is expected to persist in northern and Down East Maine until about 8 p.m. at the latest.
Then, he says, we're in for a break, with sunny and dry conditions forecast for the much of the state on Thursday.