CMP expects to complete storm recovery today

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 expects to complete storm recovery today

AUGUSTA, Maine, November 29, 2014, 9:30 a.m. " Central Maine Power Company (CMP), a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA, has restored power to nearly all of customers who lost service as a result of this week's Northeaster. As of 9:30 a.m. Saturday, fewer than 2,300 customers remained without service.

 

The remaining outages affect small groups of customers in southern and coastal areas, mostly on seasonal roads, peninsulas, islands, and other hard-to-reach locations. CMP expects to restore power to these customers throughout Saturday and complete the work by late this evening.

 

More than 157,000 homes and businesses lost power at some point between Wednesday night and Thursday morning as a Thanksgiving Day northeaster rolled through Maine. The peak number of outages reached nearly 104,000 around 8:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

 

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 and Friday.

 

The utility is working to keep customers informed of restoration progress. Customers can find information on CMP's mobile-friendly web site at www.cmpco.com. Customers can also call CMP's automated outage line " 1.800.696.1000 " if they want information on restoration progress in specific areas. The utility's staff continues to update recordings with the latest restoration information.

 

Here is a list of outages by county:

 

Lincoln: 916
York: 548
Cumberland: 543
Sagadahoc: 277
CMP Total: 2,284

 

Storm summary:

A storm packing heavy, wet snow followed by brisk winds moved into Maine on Wednesday, Nov. 26, and the first outage reports came in to CMP that evening. Storm conditions lingered through the night and the number of outages reached a peak of 104,000 at 8:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving. Damage was particularly severe in York, Cumberland, Lincoln, and Sagadahoc Counties in southern and coastal regions, where nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow fell in some areas. Trees and limbs came down onto power lines, breaking nearly 50 utility poles and bringing down hundreds of sections of wire. Snow-coated roads made travel conditions hazardous and combined with storm debris to keep crews from accessing many of the damaged areas. Despite the challenges, crews restored service to 75,000 customers on Thanksgiving Day, and the outage count had dropped to fewer than 30,000 accounts late that evening. Crews made additional progress Friday, reducing outages to fewer than 4,000 customers by late evening. The remaining outages being cleaned up on Saturday were very small customer groups, seasonal homes, islands, hard-to-reach locations, and single customer service cables. The CMP restoration team included more than 1000 employees and contractors, including line and tree crews and support personnel in the field and company offices.

 

This is the last update for this storm.

 

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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