PORTLAND, Maine — Utility and public works crews across the state continued working into the weekend on power restoration efforts after hundreds of thousands of Mainers were left in the dark Thursday by a powerful nor'easter that clobbered the state.
Leaders with Central Maine Power explained Saturday what specifically is being done and what "assessing" means, exactly.
At the height of the storm, more than 375,000 CMP customers lost power across the state. That number has since decreased to around 80,000 Saturday evening, as crews still continue to chip away at the outages.
"We're going to be working through the weekend," CMP spokesperson Jon Breed said.
With many glued to the CMP outage website looking to see when their street with get power restored, Breed said he often gets questions about why the website lists streets with the status as "assessing."
At times it might seem like restoration has come to a standstill, but Breed said he wanted to assure people that assessing means crews behind the scenes are taking into account the magnitude of damage in a trouble spot and are working to determine what is needed to get it fixed.
"Our crews have to physically go to a site, put eyes on it, and figure out a work plan to begin putting in the estimated restoration times, bringing in the manpower, bringing in the equipment, bringing in the materials to get power back online," Breed explained.
He also said it can be common for the website to skip directly from "assessing" to "restored" because of the work line crews put in.
"As of right now, we are finalizing the assessment of more than 5,100 individual instances of damage," Breed said. "[Saturday] we are looking to populate an estimated restoration time, or ETRs, for all of the customers that haven't had their power turned back on."
Breed also explained that while this is one of the larger storms Maine has seen this year, crews are still stocked up on enough equipment and materials to avoid waiting for parts and can also take inventory from surrounding states if needed.
Breed wanted to remind people to take precautions if drivers see CMP crews working along the side of the road, slowing down to avoid any collisions.