PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Nearly 1,300 Emera Maine customers in The County experienced power outages on Sunday morning after an equipment failure in Limestone.
Emera Maine Corporate and Media Communications Specialist Judy Long said the company had become aware of the outages at around 8:20 a.m. When workers arrived at the scene of the reports, they discovered an electrical line was not functioning correctly.
Emera Maine issued an outage alert shortly after 9 a.m, and encouraged customers to report loss of power directly to the company.
Long said that the cause of the outage was a failed piece of equipment, an insulator, located in Limestone. She was unaware why the insulator had failed but said it might have been because the equipment was “damaged” or “old.” She described what had occurred as an “isolated incident,” involving only one piece of equipment.
Service was restored to all customers by around 11:20 a.m. The outage lasted about three hours total.
Though Long said Emera Maine had extra crews on standby due to potential interruptions from heavy winds predicted in Aroostook County on Sunday, she said the incident did not seem to be weather-related.
The outage affected residents across the Fort Fairfield-Limestone area, including those in Mapleton, Caswell and Connor.
Emera Maine serves about 34,000 customers across Aroostook County,
meaning that only about 4 percent of County customers were affected by the outages.
Long said Emera Maine’s extra crews would continue to be on standby throughout the day in the case of weather-related outages.
“We’re planning for the worst but certainly hoping for the best today,” Long said.
She recommended that any Emera Maine customers who believe they have an outage or see something unsafe related to their electricity call them at 855-363-7211.
