A power outage Thursday morning in Waterville, caused by a tree branch knocking down a line, left 687 customers in the dark for about an hour.
The outage, which started at 8:47 a.m., was caused by a tree branch that fell onto a line on First Rangeway, according to Central Maine Power spokeswoman Gail Rice.
Power was reported back on for some CMP customers, such as the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Kennedy Memorial Drive, around 9:20 a.m.; and the rest were back on line by 9:45 a.m.
The outage on Kennedy Memorial Drive affected an area from Interstate 95 east to First Rangeway. Inland Hospital, which is just east of the First Rangeway intersection, wasn’t affected by the outage, but Lakewood Continuing Care and physicians’ offices associated with the hospital were, said Sara Berry, the hospital’s director of community relations.
She said Lakewood Continuing Care has a generator that allows it to operate at 65 percent capacity, so that essential services weren’t interrupted. She said some of the physician practices on the seven-building campus also lost power, but patients were rescheduled for later in the day; and while it was “a bit of an inconvenience,” there were no serious problems.
During the outage, employees of other businesses along the busy road milled about in parking lots, waiting for power to be restored, including at Dunkin’ Donuts, where employees and customers rushed back into the building when the power came back on.
The traffic lights from the highway at exit 127 to First Rangeway were out, but police said the outage caused no traffic problems.
The outage affected 75 customers on Kennedy Memorial Drive, 27 on Washington Street and 35 on Airport Road, according to CMP’s website. The outage also affected customers who live on side streets off of these roads, Rice said.
Madeline St. Amour – 861-9239
mstamour@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @madelinestamour
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