Central Maine Power Co. said it expects to start repair on utility poles and lines that were blown into the water along the Cribstone Bridge on Route 24 in Harpswell first thing Saturday morning.

Sometime Friday morning strong winds sent poles and lines into the body of water known as Will’s Gut, knocking out power again for customers on Bailey Island.

CMP spokeswoman Gail Rice said with the wind whipping and the tide coming in, no repairs could be done Friday afternoon, and crews can’t do the repairs at night.

The poles will need to be reset.

CMP was staging contractors to start work at approximately 9 a.m. Saturday when it is low tide, “and hopefully they’ll get those poles replaced and get everything back up and going sometime tomorrow.”

The company was also reaching out to town officials to give them an update Friday afternoon. 

Nearly two weeks after a tropical storm knocked out power to more than 400,000 CMP customers, strong winds returned again to Maine, causing more outages.

Rice said Friday afternoon customer outage totals had been hovering around 20,000, peaking at around 25,000 shortly before noon. The numbers will continue to fluctuate while the high winds continue.

The worst of the wind gusts were supposed to be over by 4 p.m., and once the wind subsides Rice said the outages should start to drop as well.

CMP has some contractors within the state that are helping the utility today, Rice said.

“We’re working to get everyone up back quickly as we can,” she said. 

dmoore@timesrecord.com