HARTFORD, Maine — The power was out Wednesday for 80 percent of people in this western Maine community following Monday’s wind storm, but the food was hot inside the town hall.
Several volunteers in the Oxford County town of roughly 1,200 people prepared corn dogs, chicken and rice soup and spaghetti along with coffee in the kitchen for any residents who stopped inside the generator-powered building for a bite to eat to charge phones.
Amid the generosity and neighborliness was lingering frustration over the amount of time it was taking Central Maine Power Co. crews to restore service in Hartford, about 30 minutes northwest of Lewiston, and the frequency of updates on estimated restoration times.
People in Hartford know CMP won’t often get to them first because there are bigger communities to service, said Robin Farrar, who has served on the planning board and other town bodies over the years. Some residents suspect “we’re not rich enough.”
“But these towns are very resilient,” Farrar said of Hartford and nearby towns. “At least we’re all together.”
CMP and Versant Power, the state’s two major utilities, reported a combined total of nearly 219,000 outages as of 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Early in the day, most of those without power were dealing with uncertainty about when it would be turned back on.
For those in CMP’s coverage area in southern and central Maine, the message was that the company was “assessing” their roads.” In Versant’s region in eastern and central Maine, the utility said estimated restoration times were “under investigation” in the hard-hit towns. Some customers were losing patience over those messages.
“That’s the part that’s really driving me nuts,” Barbara Beauregard of Brewer said Wednesday.
“The humming of generators, it’s the new sound of Christmas,” her husband, Larry Beauregard, added with a smile.
The companies emphasized the historic and unexpected seriousness of Monday’s storm, which brought wind speeds surpassing 90 mph in some areas and several inches of rain that prompted flooding along inland rivers, including the Androscoggin and Kennebec.
Estimated restoration times began appearing on CMP’s website Wednesday afternoon, with spokesperson Jon Breed and vice president of customer service, Linda Ball, encouraging customers to check the utility’s app and sign up for text alerts rather than repeatedly calling the customer service line. Versant also released a list of roads expected to get power back soon.
Hundreds of crews from other states and Canada had arrived in Maine this week to assist with clearing trees, removing debris and restoring power, with both CMP and Versant calling it the largest restoration event in their histories. For CMP, that history includes the historic 1998 ice storm that led to billions of dollars in damage across the northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada.
“I think they’re doing everything they can,” Gov. Janet Mills said at a Wednesday news conference, noting that restoration effectively could not start until Tuesday when the high winds died down.
Not all Mainers were upset at the utilities. Penny Goodwin, a Sumner resident, was outside a bustling Tilton’s Market in Buckfield on Wednesday afternoon and said she was “very pleased” with CMP’s communication about service expected to return to her home Thursday.
Back inside the Hartford Town Hall, Lennie Eichman was one of the volunteers preparing food when she received a welcome alert on her phone around 12:45 p.m. Wednesday.
It was a text from CMP saying the outage affecting nearly all of the more than 700 customers in Hartford should have power restored by 8 p.m. Thursday, well ahead of estimates in some places that the outages may last until Christmas.
It drew smiles and excited chatter. The end to the darkness was in sight.
BDN writers Marie Weidmayer and Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
