ORIENT, Maine — Residents in seven communities in southern Aroostook County will be without power for a 10-hour period on Sunday, April 24.
Officials from Eastern Maine Electric announced the planned outage Tuesday morning. The communities of Bancroft, Haynesville, Macwahoc, Molunkus, Orient, Reed Plantation and Weston will be without electricity from 5:45 a.m. until 4 p.m.
The outage also affects all EMEC members in Washington County and EMEC customers in Carroll, Drew, Kingman, Lakeville, Lee, Mattawamkeag, Prentiss, Springfield, Webster and Winn in Penobscot County.
The outage is part of NB Power’s plan to cut an electrical feed to Eastern Maine Electric’s transmission line serving four of the Co-op’s substations.
Eastern Maine Electric plans to make the most of the NB Power outage by taking care of repairs and upgrades that would otherwise require separate planned outages.
EMEC officials offered the following tips for those who will be affected.
Before the outage, make sure mobile phones and other devices are fully charged; turn up home heat well before the beginning of the outage; plan breakfast and lunch the night before, and put anything you will need from the refrigerator or freezer in a cooler on ice; and plug in a corded phone (landline) phone.
During the outage, customers are advised to keep their refrigerators and freezers closed to keep the cold air inside; retain home heat by minimizing trips in and out of the house; and pay attention to directions and safety instructions if you operate a generator during the outage.
“We regret the inconvenience this planned outage will cause, but we have been assured by NB Power that it must be done, and that it can not safely be done except in daylight,” according to EMEC.
