Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
THE THUNDER ROLLS — Dark ominous clouds roll over the Aroostook County Courthouse building Sept. 11. A powerful storm knocked out power in the greater Houlton are for several hours.
By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — An intense storm was to blame for a fluke incident Sept. 11 that caused two major power lines to fail at almost the same time for residents in southern Aroostook County.
The fast moving electrical storm knocked out power to 5,000 Houlton customers, while an estimated additional 5,000 customers of Maine Public Service from Mars Hill, Bridgewater, Monticello, Ludlow, Oakfield, Island Falls, Patten, and Sherman were also impacted.
According to John Clark, president of Houlton Water Company, there are two main transmission lines owned and maintained by Maine Public Service/Bangor Hydro that feed electricity into Houlton from Presque Isle.
“Either line alone can carry the load in southern Aroostook,” Clark explained.
One of those power lines (Line 6920) was hit by a tree, just south of Bridgewater, which caused a fire that burned the line to the ground at about 5:05 p.m.
A few minutes later, the second major line (Line 6910) was struck by lighting and went down, Clark said.
“That put all Houlton Water Company, Eastern Maine Electric and Maine Public Service customers without power in southern Aroostook and into northern Penobscot (Patten, Shin Pond and Sherman),” he said. “This incident was unusual because both lines were both without power.”
The Maine Public Service crew brought one of those lines back up at 8:05 p.m. However, once that line was active, Houlton Water Company discovered that its own system had some issues as well.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
IMPROVISING — Kevin Mania, left, and Tim Tweedie, both of Houlton, grill up some food Sept. 11 during the power outage.
“We could not find (those issues) until 6910 was put back in service,” Clark said. “Once power came back on at 8:05 p.m., we found we still had about 400 customers without power caused by lighting strikes on our own system. We called out our crews and began attempting to restore power to those customers beginning at 8:20 p.m. and by 10:45 p.m. all customers were back on.”
Clark added this was the first time in his 29-year history with HWC that he has seen both transmission lines fail at roughly the same time.
Houlton Police Chief Butch Asselin said no major incidents were reported during the 3-5.5-hour power outage. His department had officers out patrolling the streets, especially along the North Road, where traffic was highest.
He noted Ken’s Store reported a break-in occurred at some point during Wednesday night, as it was discovered the next morning.
