Maine electric companies have dramatically reduced the number of outages caused by heavy winds blowing trees and limbs down on power lines, but some Mainers won't get their lights back until tomorrow.
Central Maine Power says around 17,000 of its customers are still without power, down from a peak of around 65,000 around 6 a.m. Most than half of the remaining outages are in western Maine, where CMP spokeperson Gail Rice says winds were stronger.
“It's a challenging area to take care of because, for one thing, square mileage is huge,” Rice says. “It's the biggest part of our service area and the population is quite sparse. A lot of trees up in that area.”
Rice says CMP expects to have power back to most customers by late this evening, but restoration efforts will continue into tomorrow.
Emera Maine still has 2,200 customers without service.
