More than 230,000 Central Maine Power customers were left in the dark over the weekend. The company’s executive chairman, David Flanagan, says for some, the outage may last a day or two longer.
“We expect to have several counties back on tonight and then a couple more tomorrow night. And the most hard hit areas which are the northern tier, Franklin, Somerset, Oxford and Piscataquis, may not get back on until some time Wednesday,” he says.
Flanagan says most outages were caused by trees that couldn’t previously be trimmed falling on primary power lines.
“We can only cut trees within our right of way except with the express permission of the landowner, tree by tree. And our right of way is only 8 feet around a given tree. So most of the damage, almost all of the damage is from trees outside of our right of way falling onto the lines,” he says.
About 2,000 utility workers are helping restore power across the state. As of 9:15 a.m. Monday, Central Maine Power had reduced the number of customers without power to approximately 75,000 and Versant to just under 200.