CMP wins Prestigious Electric Industry Award for 2024 April Nor’easter Storm Response
CMP worker walks down road in York County with damage from nor’easter, date: April 7, 2024
Edison Electric Institute recognized the hard work of CMP crews for a second year in a row
AUGUSTA, ME – January 8, 2025 – Central Maine Power (CMP), a subsidiary of Avangrid, today announced it has won the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Emergency Response Award. The award honors the extraordinary performance of CMP during recovery and restoration efforts following a spring nor’easter that brought strong winds, heavy snow, and ice to Maine on April 4, 2024. EEI recognized CMP during its winter meeting on January 7, 2025.
“We are committed to serving our customers with safe and reliable service in any situation,” said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. “Despite the widespread damage caused by this storm, our women and men worked quickly to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers in a matter of days. The planning, preparation, and response took a true team effort, and all of us are immensely proud to be recognized by EEI with this prestigious award.”
The long-duration storm left more than 270,000 customers without power across the state. Snow loading on trees from heavy, wet snow along with strong winds were the primary causes of damage. More than 1,100 crews took part in the major restoration effort that included damage assessments, tree clearing and repairs to electrical infrastructure.
“Spring 2024 saw back-to-back snow and ice storms impact hundreds of thousands of CMP customers. After wet, heavy snow brought down trees and power lines across Maine, our teams worked tirelessly to get the lights back on for our communities and neighbors,” said Joe Purington, president and CEO of CMP. “Our top priority in any storm is fast power restoration. This award goes to our CMP crews who showed up in snow, ice, wind, and rain and made that possible.”
This is CMP’s second year in a row for this honor. CMP was awarded EEI’s Emergency Response Award in 2023 for its response to the strong wind and rainstorm that struck Maine on December 18, 2023.
Presented to EEI member companies twice each year, the Emergency Response Awards recognize companies that put forth outstanding efforts to restore service promptly to the public following a storm or natural disaster. Following a nomination process, EEI announced CMP was an award recipient during EEI’s winter Board of Directors and CEO meeting.