By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer 

REGION— With power outagesfollowing two December storms that were a week apart, Lake Region residents might be wondering why some homeowners get electricity restored sooner than others. 

Central Maine Power (CMP) follows a protocol. 

“First off, our first priority is working with local emergency and public safety agencies to identify and remove any wires that are down that are blocking roads to make sure that emergency vehicles can pass,” according to CMP Manager of Corporate Communications Catharine Hartnett.

“We make areas safe so there are no dangerous wires,” Hartnett said.

Once the major roads are cleared, CMP crews turn their attention to getting electricity running to the local hospital, she said. 

“Next, we address circuits that have hospitals on them and other critical care facilities. We address circuits for any facility that might have a vulnerable population,” Hartnett said.  

“Then, we turn our attention to making repairs that restore as many customers as possible with one repair,” she said. “It takes as many linemen and as much equipment to restore one [1] customer or 1,000 customers. You can have a tree come down on a circuit that serves a large population and you can have a tree fall on a circuit that serves two or three households.”

That is the phase where crews are at while working to restore power in the region this week: Figuring out which obstacle removals will provide the most customers with electricity again.

“In the Bridgton area, we have a whole set of crew in that area. They are applying that logic to the one area,” Hartnett said, adding, “We don’t start in Portland or Lewiston and go to smaller towns. We are doing that process in each region.”

Another big assist during times of power outagesare CMP’s key account managers. They are the people who communicate with town managers and public safety personnel to develop a plan for what the town’s needs are following a storm, Hartnett said.  

CMP employees follow the weather forecast, looking for predictions of the type of weather likely to result in power outages. 

“We have about 200 lineworkers that are employees of CMP. When we know a large storm is coming, days ahead of time, we get additional resources who travel to the state and assist as soon as it’s safe to start restoration,” Hartnett said.  

“For a storm of this magnitude, we have contractors from all over the country,” she said, referring to the rainstorm on Friday that was accompanied by 35 to 60 mph gusts.  

“We had 400 contractor crews, 800 additional line workers, in the state before the storm even started,” she said.

A contractor crew is made up of two people,  she explained.  

“We watch the forecast and see where the storm will have the most impact or be the worst — whether that is heavy snow or high winds. We get three forecasts a day from three  meteorologists. We position the crews according to what the forecast is telling us,” she said.  

“In this particular storm [on Dec. 23] we needed an additional 250 contractor crews [500 people] once the storm had subsided. That is when we called in the crews from around the country as far away as California, Texas and Georgia,” Hartnett said. 

In addition to hiring U.S. workers, CMP also relies on lineworkers from Canada. 

“We will frequently call Canadian crews. They are close and they are familiar with our system,” she said.

The company prides itself in staying in touch with its electric customers and offers ways people can share or seek information.   

“We try to communicate constantly. We post on social media. We send out customer emails to keep folks up to speed on where we are with restoring power,” Hartnett said. 

“People are always welcome to contact us. We have online and phone resources. People can contact us, particularly if they see a dangerous situation. If it’s not necessarily threatening them, but if they see live wire, they should contact us,” she said. “We have a lot of resources on our websiteto serve anybody.”