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Tens of thousands of Mainers without power after Wednesday's storm

A Versant Power truck is pictured in this 2020 file photo.
Nina Mahaleris
/
BDN
A Versant Power truck is pictured in this 2020 file photo. 

Trees are down across the state and tens of thousand of Mainers were still without power Thursday afternoon after a storm the day before brought heavy rain and wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour.

As of Thursday afternoon, Versant Power projects all customers will have their electricity restored by Saturday night.

Just fewer than 40,000 Versant customers were without power at 4 p.m., according to the utility. Spokesperson Marissa Minor said the utility believes it will restore power to the vast majority of customers in Aroostook County Thursday evening.

But other areas have more downed trees and fallen limbs on power lines, and so it will take longer to make repairs.

"The greater Bangor area and also the Lamoine area were very hard hit, so we expect to continue work there tomorrow and Saturday," Minor said Thursday afternoon.

By late Thursday afternoon, Minor said the utility had finished assessing most of the damage and is now focused on making the repairs that will restore power to the greatest number of people at a time.

Crews have been working since 6 a.m. to remove downed trees and wires, said John Flynn, president of Versant Power.

"It used to be in Maine when we had storms this time of year, the ground was frozen. The tree damage was less acute," he said Thursday morning. But as we're well aware, the ground is really saturated; it's not frozen. So [there has been] a lot tree movement. The combination of wind and trees really is what drove the damage that we're seeing today."

Central Maine Power reports about 5,000 people were without power as of 4 p.m.