Winter weather warnings and advisories are in effect throughout Maine on Monday due to heavy snowfall and high winds.
More than 27,000 customers were without power around 4 p.m., mostly in York County. CMP is working with the Maine Emergency Management Agency to clear blocked roads and restore power to customers.
Megan Arsenault, deputy director of the York County Emergency Management Agency, says some residents may still experience outages as the storm plays out this afternoon and evening.
"As the snow continues and rain and even ice, the trees are already pretty heavily saturated with snow and that is starting to weigh down on power lines," she says. "We may get more outages this afternoon."
Gov. Janet Mills has directed all state offices to close for the day and is encouraging people to avoid driving.
The Maine Department of Transportation is urging drivers who must be on the roads to slow down and to leave plenty of space between vehicles — especially snow plows. At midafternoon, a spokesperson for the Maine State Police said there had been more than 60 crashes and slide-offs on the Turnpike and more than 50 on Interstate 95.
The majority were because of drivers going too fast for the conditions and losing control of their vehicles.
