BANGOR, Maine — "The level of damage is unprecedented," Versant Power President John Flynn said Wednesday. "I've been in this business for 40 years and I've never seen damage like this."
Thousands of people in Greater Bangor and Eastern Maine were still without power Thursday following Monday's powerful rain and windstorm. At its peak, Versant reported 97,000 customers without power. As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, 26,000 customers were still in the dark.
"We've got 205 line crews. We've also got 50 tree crews, 35 digger trucks out, so we've got a total of just under 300 crews working the storm, which is far and away beyond anything we've had in the company's history working a storm," Flynn said.
According to Flynn, crews from across New England and New York are in Maine assisting in power restoration efforts. He hopes to see power restored to the vast majority of customers that have been in the dark.
"We're hoping to get to 90% if not today, certainly tomorrow," Flynn said.
"I feel really good about the job that we've done for this storm. We were ready, as ready as we can be. The level of damage is just unprecedented," Flynn added.
Versant Power plans to continue working around the clock to restore power, and the utility provider has shared a list of roads it hopes to have power restored to by the end of the day on Wednesday.
Flynn said some restoration, like in areas where individual lines were ripped off of homes, or rural areas like camps in Northern Maine may be without power into the weekend. Flynn said as the holidays approach, he and his teams are working diligently to get the lights back on.
"It's the second year in a row we've had a Christmas storm, so we're really aware of how it impacts people whether it's Christmas or not. I wouldn't say we brought in additional resources just because it's Christmas, but we feel some added pressure to get everybody back on," Flynn said.
You can view information on outages in your areas by using Versant's Live Outage Map.