Storm brings hail, downs trees
Knocks out power in northern Maine
Thunderstorms that rumbled through parts of northern and eastern Maine on Saturday, August 6, 2016 left behind numerous downed trees and hail ranging from dime size to quarter size, according to a storm report issued over the weekend by the National Weather Service’s office in Caribou.
The stormy weather also knocked out power to more than 5,600 Emera Maine customers, according to spokesman Bob Potts.
The bulk of the damage occurred between about 1:30 and 5 p.m., as the stormy weather worked its way from Aroostook County to Penobscot County and on to the Down East region.
Littleton was particularly hard hit with what the weather service described as quarter-size, or 1.5-inch, hail. Littleton also had trees down in several locations across town.
Meanwhile, Jonesboro had nearly 1-inch hail, and Calais and Baileyville had half-inch hail.
Downed trees were reported in several locations, including Lincoln, Lee, Howland, Eddington, Brewer and Hampden, according to the storm report.
The thunderstorms left Emera Maine customers without power about 4:15 p.m. Saturday. By 9 p.m., the total was down to about 4,500, according to Potts.
Repair crews had made significant progress by mid-Sunday afternoon.
As of 3:30 p.m., service had yet to be restored to 283 customers, most of which were in the Lincoln and Lee area, according to the utility’s live outage map.
Service to most that area was expected to be restored by about 8 p.m.
Potts said that all of the outages over the weekend were the result of Saturday’s storms, with the exception of those occurring in the Orono-Old Town area on Saturday morning, which resulted from a piece of equipment that failed and needed to be replaced.
“Our system took a direct lightning hit in Sherman Saturday afternoon that resulted in a pole needing to be replaced. Monticello also saw a number of storm-related outages,” Potts said Sunday afternoon.
He said repair crews were focused Sunday afternoon on restoring small circuits feeding private homes and camps, which could be slow going.
