CMP crews restore power to almost 75,000 homes and businesses on Thanksgiving Day
CMP News
Central Maine Power Company, 83 Edison Drive, Augusta, ME 04336 (207) 622-NEWS
Corporate Communications - corpcomm@cmpco.com
Release: Immediate
Media Contacts: Gail Rice, 207.622.NEWS, gail.rice@cmpco.com
CMP crews restore power to almost 75,000 homes and businesses on Thanksgiving Day
AUGUSTA, Maine, November 27, 2014, 9 p.m. " Central Maine Power Company (CMP), a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA, reports significant progress as its crews have worked through Thanksgiving Day to restore power to nearly 75,000 homes and businesses since early this morning. As of 9 p.m. the company's crews have reduced the number outages to about 30,000. The utility expects to restore service to most customers by Friday night. The Northeaster that rolled through Maine Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning knocked out power to more than 157,000 homes and businesses with the peak number of outages reaching nearly 104,000 around 8:30 on Thursday morning.
"We started the day with just over 100,000 customers without power, but expect to restore service to about 70 percent by sometime late tonight," said Gail Rice, spokesperson for Central Maine Power. "If the good weather holds through tomorrow, we hope to complete at least 90 percent of the restoration by Friday evening. We will still have scattered outages on Saturday affecting small groups of customers, especially on seasonal roads, peninsulas, islands, and other hard-to-reach locations."
At CMP's request, Governor LePage issued a Declaration of Emergency late Wednesday night that allowed 60 utility crews from Canada to drive longer hours during the night to join the restoration effort during the day on Thursday. Nearly 1,000 CMP employees and contractors worked through Thanksgiving Day restoring power to almost 75,000 homes and business and re-establishing service along most of the company's major distribution lines that serve large concentrations of residential and commercial customers."
Following is a list of outages by county:
York: 15,369
Cumberland: 7,591
Lincoln: 4,500
Sagadahoc: 2,863
Kennebec: 595
Androscoggin: 567
Knox: 214
Oxford: 165
Hancock: 48
Waldo: 10
Somerset: 4
CMP Total :31,926
CMP also reminds drivers to use caution when approaching utility crews. The working conditions are difficult, and the workers appreciate everyone's consideration for their safety.
Additional information on storm safety and restoration is on CMP's web site at www.cmpco.com.
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About Central Maine Power Company (CMP): Central Maine Power Company, a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA, is Maine's largest electricity transmission and distribution utility. The company delivers about 9 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually to more than 600,000 homes and businesses, representing about 80% of Maine's annual consumer sales of electricity. The company has been ranked #1 in customer satisfaction six times by J.D. Power and Associates. For more information, visit www.cmpco.com/.
About Iberdrola USA: Iberdrola USA is the U.S. subsidiary of global energy leader Iberdrola, S.A. The Iberdrola USA companies employ about 5,000 people with operations in 24 states from New England to the West Coast, providing electricity generation, transmission and distribution, natural gas storage and distribution, and energy services. For more information, please visit our website: www.iberdrolausa.com. Follow us on Twitter: @IberdrolaUSA