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CMP Goes All-Out to Get York County Customers Back on Line

December 17, 2008 - ALFRED — Despite the 17-hour work shifts, three different hotels in three nights, and the long distance from his wife and daughter back in Nova Scotia, Grant Metham is actually enjoying his ice storm duty in southern Maine.

"It's going great," said Metham, a power line worker with Halifax-based Emera Utility Services, one of the contractors that mobilized to help Central Maine Power Co. restore electricity after last week's ice storm. "Everything is coming together well. The people down here have been outstanding.

"One guy wanted to give us some deer steaks."

On Monday afternoon, Metham and the members of his crew worked to restring a mess of fallen power lines along Route 111 in Alfred. They were among roughly 500 line workers on the job Monday from Maine, New York, Michigan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. They were joined in the effort by more than 100 tree crews.

Neighborhood to neighborhood, and sometimes house to house, the crews chipped away at the remaining power outages, having already restored the vast majority of the 220,000 homes and businesses knocked out Friday by the storm.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, roughly 30,000 electricity customers were still waiting. Almost all of them were in York County.

Officials at CMP said restoration efforts went faster than expected Monday in Cumberland, Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties, where fewer than 1,000 accounts remained offline Monday night. The company still wants to meet its goal, announced by president Sara Burns on Sunday, of returning power to 99 percent of accounts by Wednesday night.

"It's a goal, it's not a guarantee," said CMP spokeswoman Gail Rice. "We have been saturating York County with line and tree crews, and that saturation will be even heavier tomorrow and Wednesday."

CMP provides electricity to more than 590,000 homes and businesses in Maine. Rice said York County, which had 84,000 homes and businesses without power at the peak on Friday – about 70 percent of the county – was hit much harder by this storm than it was a decade ago.

"The fact that we are four days into it, and we have gotten this much accomplished, I think says a lot about how much we learned from the ice storm in 1998, and how well-coordinated this effort is," Rice said.

The federal government, meanwhile, pledged financial assistance to six Maine counties hit hard by the ice storm. President Bush issued an emergency declaration for York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox and Waldo counties, which had been requested by Gov. John Baldacci early on Monday. The declaration clears the way for government aid to help with the costs of generators, food and other supplies.

Bob Bohlmann, director of the York County Emergency Management Agency, said patience is wearing thin among residents in his county. He said it's human nature to be frustrated when you see your neighbors getting power back, and you still don't have heat or lights.

"We're getting into the fourth day and there is anger. They're frustrated," Bohlmann said. "The other thing is, they don't understand how the grid works."

So Bohlmann spent part of his day on Monday reassuring residents that CMP is doing everything it can to restore the entire system.

"(CMP President) Sara Burns made a commitment here that 99 percent of the meters would be restored by Wednesday night. I think she is living true to her statement now," Bohlmann said.

Shelters remained open in Saco, Sanford, Wells, South Berwick and York, and will remain open as long as they are needed, Bohlmann said. He also stressed the need for safety by homeowners. Six buildings were damaged by fire in York County over the past few days, and at least four of them were directly related to the storm. In one, a generator was placed too close to combustible items; in another, a broken ground wire caused a fire.

Service in Greater Portland was almost entirely restored by Monday night, Rice said.

At Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, the light at Portland Head Light was still without power Monday morning. A backup battery system kept the light on, but only at partial brightness, said Sean Walsh of the U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation team in South Portland. CMP restored power to Fort Williams on Monday afternoon.

Mariners depend on Portland Head Light, and nearby lights such as Spring Point and Ram Island Ledge, to navigate the channel that leads in and out of Portland Harbor.

The outage did not cause any navigational problems, Walsh said.

By TREVOR MAXWELL, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, December 16, 2008


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