On October 29, a major rainstorm with winds exceeding 60 miles per hour took out power to 5,167 CMP customers (out of 7,146) in Gorham. Schools were canceled and most businesses in the Village were closed. Hannaford remained open, but was only able to sell non-refrigerated products.

Power outages began during the night and continued into the early morning. Most of the outages occurred as a result of trees falling onto power lines. Many roads were closed due to downed lines, including Route 25 near Gateway Commons, Middle Jam Road, Hodgdon Rd., Burham Rd., Lowell Rd., McLellan Rd., Buck and North Streets, Ossipee Trail near Brandybrook Hill and Dingley Spring, Osborne Rd., Sebago Lake Rd. near White Rock Outboard, Barstow Rd., Dunlap Rd. and Wescott/Goodall Rd.

“The region is still experiencing strong winds, which create dangerous conditions for service restoration,” said CMP spokesperson Gail Rice. “Our first priority is public safety, and crews are busy grounding and de-energizing downed lines so they don’t pose a danger to first responders or the public. This critical step needs to be completed before restoration can begin.”

Lucas Tree was hired to clear trees in an attempt to expedite power restoration. Bucket crews from CMP were not able to repair lines until the winds fell below 35 mph.

For many this was reminiscent of the outages seen in 1998 after an historic ice storm, however, Maine’s Emergency Management Agency said this storm caused more power outages of Central Maine Power customers than any other storm in Maine state history. More than 484,000 Maine homes were without power on October 30.

At press time, many in Gorham were still without power but both CMP and Gorham Public Works were working hard to clean up and restore electricity to those affected.