FRYEBURG, Maine — The first December snowstorm of 2023 arrived overnight into Monday morning, causing power outages in towns across a wide spectrum of topographies.
But the town of Fryeburg bore the brunt of it, just like it had nearly one year prior.
By 10 a.m. Monday, more than 42,000 Central Maine Power customers in Oxford County were without power—nearly double the next worst county, Kennebec County. Within Oxford County, three-quarters of Fryeburg's 2,358 customers were in the dark.
That's how Ally Quinn woke up this morning. With wet, sticky snow clinging to nearly every branch in town, it was a marvelous sight, but it was the source of the outages.
She hurried with her husband to their second home—the Jockey Cap Country Store on Route 302, just outside of downtown Fryeburg. The couple owns and operates the store, which was also without power when they arrived. But the Quinns fired up its backup generator and, with lights occasionally flickering and half of them turned off altogether—along with the store's gas pumps—the pair began cooking what they could and serving a steady stream of regulars.
"A little rough today," Ally smiled. "I woke up with no power, so we kind of started our day off a little different than normal. But it has happened before, so, we're just kind of riding the wave."
It had, indeed, happened before.
On Dec. 19, 2022, a wet snowstorm knocked out power to 22,000 Oxford County CMP customers—a third of all outages across the company's territory.
Ally did not want to cast blame but said her business and home lose power regularly when a storm rolls through.
"Sadly, we're kind of getting used to it, which seems kind of silly," she shrugged. "But, yeah, kind of getting used to losing the power pretty commonly."
Fryeburg Fire Chief Andy Dufresne shrugged as well when he left the station to head to a call around 1 p.m. He said he had been working nonstop since 3 a.m., answering calls for tree limbs on power lines and cars stuck in snowbanks. In the aftermath of the 2022 storm, he met us outside the station at the 38-hour mark of his shift, with more left to work. Monday was expected to be another taxing day.
Meanwhile, Tyler Smith went to great lengths to make the best of the situation.
Fryeburg Academy canceled his classes, so the student started the family's generator at home and jumped on his Ski-Doo.
"I could not wait," he smiled while sitting on his snowmobile. "I saw the first snow—or the second snow; looked good enough to ride, so, I figured, why not?"
Smith sped off, kicking up fresh snow and specs of dirt.
