Over 300,000 customers are still without power in Maine and New Hampshire after a nor'easter blasted the region, dropping nearly two feet of heavy, wet snow in some areas.
“This was pretty much a classic nor’easter,” said Stephen Baron, a meteorologist for the weather service in Gray, Maine. “This is definitely a high-end storm for April. It’s not crazy for us to get snow in April, but not usually getting double-digit amounts.”
The weather service said it was the biggest April nor'easter to hit the region since 2020.
Central Maine Power said 162,730 of its customers still had no electricity as of 8:30 p.m. Friday. The power company has said the restoration effort could last until next week, promising to work around the clock until everyone has their lights back on.
"Restoration efforts continue after yesterday’s powerful storm and more than 212,000 customers have had their power restored. As we head into this weekend, 1,000 external crews will be working alongside CMP crews to restore your power quickly and safely," the company said Friday afternoon. "We continue to make progress in our efforts to restore power to all customers affected by yesterday’s Nor’easter. Our entire team is focused on this restoration effort with hundreds of crews working to get every customers’ lights turned on. Additional crews arrived last night, and more are arriving today to help with restoration efforts."
Warming centers are open across southern Maine to assist residents who are without power.
In New Hampshire, about 52,000 customers still had no power as of Friday night, and many roads remain closed due to downed trees and wires.
About 22,000 of those outages are Eversource customers. The power company said in a statement Thursday that they continue to make "significant progress assessing damage, focusing on public safety issues and responding to the impacts of a long-duration weather event that caused extensive damage across the region."
Residents living in areas where power outages are continuing should make sure to check on neighbors, especially those who may be vulnerable, said Robert Buxton, New Hampshire Homeland Security and Emergency Management director.
Over a foot of snow fell in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where some residents who lost power checked in at the Wolfeboro Inn, general manager Shawn Black said.
“This is a lot of heavy, wet snow,” he said. “And the wind is out of the northeast, so it’s really not nice in a sense of temperature-wise, especially when the speed gets up to gusts of 55 mph. While I was out on the snowblower I could really feel my forehead just go numb."
Things were mostly back to normal across the rest of New England. Only about 900 Massachusetts customers were still without power on Friday afternoon, along with 8,000 in Vermont, about 800 in Connecticut, and none in Rhode Island.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
