AUGUSTA, Maine — Utility crews made headway Sunday restoring power to more than 145,000 homes and businesses that were left in the dark by wet, heavy snow from a rare October nor'easter, but it will be days before power is fully restored, a spokesman said.
About 130,000 customers were without service by midday Sunday, with the heaviest damage in Cumberland, York, Kennebec, Lincoln, and Androscoggin counties, Central Maine Power Co. said. That was down from up a high of 145,000 earlier in the day.
"Crews worked through the night," said spokesman John Carroll, adding that extra help from private contractors and utilities in Canada was brought in. "... Based on our assessment of the damage so far, we know that it will be several days before we can restore power to everyone."
Bangor Hydro Electric Co., meanwhile, said nearly 15,000 customers were without power, more than half of them in Washington County.
The storm left varying snowfall totals across the state, with southwestern portions getting the heaviest, the National Weather Service in Gray said. Bridgton recorded more than 17 inches, and Gray 13 inches. Portland recorded 5 inches and farther north, 6 inches in Bangor and 3 inches in Ashland.
The pre-Halloween snow failed to scare Mainers, who are used to such pre-winter encounters.
"Not a surprise," said 83-year-old Clem Dostie, who braved the slushy roads in his four-wheel drive vehicle from Belgrade to make an early morning run to Wal-Mart in Augusta. Dostie's only disappointment was that he wasn't in northern Maine for Monday's opening of deer-hunting season. "I should've been in the north country with my son now," he said.
Near the State House, Occupy demonstrators in their encampment at Capitol Park were astir Sunday morning making breakfast and tying down a tarp that had come loose in the stiff wind that gusted through.
"It did get cold," Sarah Therrien of Pittsfield said as the raw wind blew and snow kept falling. But she said the couple of dozen campers sleeping tents used cardboard for added insulation to keep warm through the night, when temperatures were just above freezing. They also shared tents to keep warm. "The only thing we worried about was the wind," she said.
Therrien said most of the Occupy campers are Mainers so the bad weather came as no surprise. Some of them even welcomed it because it showed they can tough out inhospitable weather.
"Most people were excited for the snow. Now we know we can do it," Therrien said.
In Portland, police said the Occupy encampment in Lincoln Park was there Sunday morning as well.
Maine's outage total was dwarfed by New Hampshire's where more than a quarter-million lost service and the town of Jaffrey recorded 31 inches of snow. But one more state over, Central Vermont Public Service had trimmed its list if outages to less than 100 from more than 6,300 earlier Sunday. No statewide total was available.
The storm did cause problems on Vermont's highways. State police said troopers from the Brattleboro barracks responded to more than 20 weather-related crashes or vehicles off the road on Interstate 91 and Route 9. No serious injuries were reported.
The National Weather Service said the highest total in Vermont was 9.5 inches in Springfield. Montpelier got only 1.5 inch, and the Burlington airport reported one-tenth of an inch.