UPDATE: As of 7:00 AM Wednesday morning, CMP had over 15,000 customers without power. Most of those outages are in Oxford County with over 6,000. Emera reports less than 500 customers without service.
(NEWS CENTER Maine) -- As freezing rain encases the state in ice, Central Maine Power is reporting thousands are without power Tuesday afternoon.
According to an outage map at 5:45 p.m., 32,684 customers were without power. That number had decreased to just under 20,000 as of 10:21 p.m. Tuesday night.
CMP reported an issue regarding their web outage list at about 5 p.m. Shortly after 8 p.m. the company said its online resource had been fixed, tweeting that the outage list was back to refreshing accurate numbers at a good pace.
"Our field personnel have reported considerable ice load on tree branches, particularly in inland and northern parts of our service area," said Gail Rice, a spokeswoman for CMP. "That can bring tree limbs/branches into contact with lines. This morning there was a car-pole crash in Windham, so it is possible that may be causing some of the problems as well."
Rice said crews are working to restore the outages serving larger customer numbers, then working their way out.
"Hope to get a good number this evening but the restoration will definitely extend into tomorrow in some areas," she said.
Emera Maine reported 557 outages as of 5:45 p.m.
