Another storm brought wintry weather to Maine on Tuesday, leading to widespread power outages that persisted into the night, numerous motor vehicle crashes and at least two fatalities, street flooding, dozens of school and business closings, and just enough snow to give Portland its fifth snowiest November on record.
Kingfield, a town in Franklin County, reported 12 inches of snow. The National Weather Service in Gray reported 9½ inches in Buckfield, 9 inches in Bethel, 8 in Cornish, 7½ in Raymond, 7 in Hallowell and 4 in Bowdoinham.
Portland got only 1½ inches of snow, but the weather service said that was just enough to make this the fifth-snowiest November on record in the city. So far this month, Portland has received 15.9 total inches, edging out November 1972, with 15.6 inches. It is so far still below November 1938, when 16.5 inches were recorded in the city.
The Tuesday morning commute was slow and treacherous for many people forced to navigate roads covered with wet snow or slush and dotted by deep puddles of water that had nowhere to drain. There was street flooding at Camp Ellis in Saco, as well as in Portland, including on Stevens Avenue near its intersection with Congress Street. At one point, a section of Marginal Way near the U-Haul center was closed because of flooding.
“The roads are quite slick,” Margaret Curtis, a meteorologist with the weather service office in Gray, said Tuesday morning.
The rain-snow line hugged the immediate coast, so areas west of the Maine Turnpike got more snow. Much of the snow was wet and heavy, and thousands of Central Maine Power Co. customers lost power during the storm.
The snow weighed down power lines and tree branches, and CMP reported more than 24,000 outages just before noon. Over 12,000 customers were still without electricity as of 10 p.m. Tuesday. Oxford, Cumberland, York and Franklin counties were hit hardest by outages. More than 6,000 customers were in the dark Tuesday night in Oxford County.
The combination of snow, rain and sleet also made for dangerous driving conditions.
In the Waldo County town of Liberty, William Chadwick, 55, of Oakland was killed Tuesday morning after a box truck crossed the centerline and collided head-on with his GMC Sierra, said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The Freightliner box truck was operated by Dusan Dokic of Spanaway, Wash. He was not injured, but Route 3 in Liberty – near Lake George State Park – was shut down for three hours. McCausland said Maine State Police are investigating the cause of the crash.
In Franklin County, Seth Gordon, 28, of Farmington was killed and two others were critically injured Tuesday afternoon when the car they were in lost traction on snowy Route 27 north of Kingfield and slid sideways into the path of a tractor-trailer, Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. said.
In Rockport, the Maine Department of Transportation, inmates from the Maine State Prison farm and local firefighters spent four hours in the rain cleaning up debris after a tractor-trailer carrying Burger King restaurant supplies rolled over on Route 17 around 8 a.m. The truck was put back on its wheels and the supplies moved to another truck.
In Aroostook County, Route 1 in Frenchville was shut down Tuesday afternoon after a tractor-trailer rolled over and burst into flames. The driver, Gary Vaillancourt, was operating a 2014 Freightliner filled with potatoes when he lost control on the icy road. There were no reports of injuries, state police said.
On Tuesday morning, the speed limit was reduced to 45 mph along the entire length of the Maine Turnpike, from Kittery to Augusta. Several crashes were reported on both Interstate 95 and Interstate 295 early Tuesday. A crash on I-295 in Yarmouth backed up traffic into Freeport shortly before 8 a.m.
Lebanon fire officials said Poplar Hill Road was closed between Allen Hall Road and Schoolhouse Lane because a falling tree brought down power lines.
“Please use caution on all roads and keep your eyes open,” the Lebanon Fire and EMS Department warned in a Facebook message that included descriptions of the wet, heavy snow bending trees and wires.
During the storm, Portland’s wastewater treatment plant along the East End waterfront was running a rate equivalent to 76.5 million gallons per day out of a possible throughput of 80 million gallons per day, said Scott Firmin, director of Waste Water Services. By contrast, on average, the plant pumps about 17.5 million gallons of water daily throughout the year.
It was too soon to know how much wastewater overflowed from the system, he said.
AAA of Northern New England also felt the brunt of the weather. Calls to the roadside emergency service have spiked by 15 percent this month compared with last November, an increase of about 10,000 calls.
In Portland, officials reminded drivers not to go around barriers or attempt to drive on flooded streets. The fire department said in a tweet at 8 a.m. that street flooding had been reported in some areas of the city, including near Morrill’s Corner.
“If there are barricades, yes, the road is closed. If there’s a small river forming on a street, don’t attempt to drive in it – your Civic is not a canoe,” Portland police tweeted. “Finally, please don’t swim in the road. There will be no lifeguards on duty.”
Wednesday’s forecast calls for a high temperature of 40 degrees, cloudy skies and a chance of afternoon showers. The sun is expected to gradually reappear the rest of the week, with mostly sunny skies forecast for Friday.
Donna Perry of the Sun Journal contributed to this report.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
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