CMP storm recovery passes 90 percent mark, restoring power to nearly 95,000 homes and businesses since 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 storm recovery passes 90 percent  mark, restoring power to nearly 95,000 homes and businesses since Thanksgiving Day

Utility expects to complete final restoration by Saturday evening

 

AUGUSTA, Maine, November 28, 2014, 4:30 p.m. " Central Maine Power Company (CMP), a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA, reports fewer than 9,000 customers remain without power as of 4:30 p.m. The utility expects to restore service to customers in all but four counties by late Friday night. The remaining outages, which are concentrated in southern and coastal areas, will be restored by Saturday 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.

 

"We have restored power to almost 95,000 customers since Thursday morning, and we will make more progress through the evening," said Gail Rice, spokesperson for Central Maine Power. "By late tonight, we expect the remaining outages will be in Cumberland, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, and York counties, where we have been moving more and more of our crews throughout the day. 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 and Friday. As the second full day of the storm recovery draws to a close, the utility expects to complete restoration in Oxford, Androscoggin, Knox, Kennebec, Hancock, and southern and western Cumberland Counties by late this evening.

 

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 is working to update recordings with the latest restoration information.

 

Here is a list of outages by county:

York: 3,688
Lincoln: 2,575
Cumberland: 1,412
Sagadahoc: 1,069
Oxford: 31
Androscoggin: 27
Franklin: 17
Kennebec: 3
CMP: 8,822

 

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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