Storm strikes County

Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
STORM DAMAGE — Tom Weston of Houlton Water Company works to restore power to the North Street home of Lawrence Clark Monday morning after a tree limb struck his home Sunday evening, tearing the electricity lines from the home.
By Joseph Cyr and Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writers
    HOULTON — While Hurricane Irene did not live up to its much-publicized hype in southern Aroostook County, there was still some damage reported and many people without power in a number of communities.
    According to Virginia Joles, director of communication for Maine Public Service Company, a total of 7,300 customers were without service for varying amounts of time during the storm. A total of 271 Sherman customers went without electricity for the longest amount of time (3 hours, 6 minutes), Joles said.
    The first power outages began around 10:30 p.m. in the Sherman area and spread to the northern communities of Presque Isle (4,007 customers without service), Caribou (527 cutomers) and Limestone (619 customers).
    As of 12:06 p.m. Monday, all major outages had been restored, Joles said.
    “Over the past few days, MPS workers have been preparing and planning closely with sister utility Bangor Hydro to combine resources, where possible, and provide mutual aid, if needed,” Joles said. “At about 10 a.m., six MPS line workers and a supervisor were dispatched to help Bangor Hydro with restoration efforts in the Lincoln area.”
    In the greater Houlton area, Houlton Water Company received a handful of reports of downed tree limbs, which caused minor outages.
    Monday morning, a HWC crew was at the home of Lawrence Clark on lower North Street after a large tree branch snapped and struck Clark’s home around 10:30 p.m. Sunday evening.
    “The branch landed on the roof and tore service off the side of the house,” said Carleton Wallace of HWC. “We had to remove the piece that was broken before we could put the service back up. We had a few calls throughout the night similar to this and then had a few more when we came back in this morning. It’s been pretty good. It wasn’t that bad.”
    Wallace said broken branches differ from entire trees uprooting.
    “If the tree is uprooted, it’s usually due to the soft ground,” he said. “In this case here, it was just a case of the weight of the leaves from so much rain, caused the branch to snap at a weak point in the tree. Most of the reports we had were all similar to this.”
    Clark said he “heard a little thump” outside his home, but didn’t know what had happened. He estimated his tree was at least 150 years old and was starting to show signs of aging with more and more branches coming off the tree.
    Van Buren recorded the highest Irene-related wind speed from Aroostook County at 53 miles per hour at approximately 10:46 p.m. on Sunday, according to unofficial observations recorded by the National Weather Service Office in Caribou. Other highest wind speeds were recorded right around the same time; 43 mph in Frenchville, 35 mph in Caribou, 33 mph in Presque Isle, 30 mph in Houlton and Clayton Lake, and 28 mph recorded in Ashland.
    Orient held claim to the most rain within 24 hours of Irene’s impact on The County; as of approximately 9:45 a.m. on Monday, the town had received 3.4 inches of rain. Also recorded on the morning of the 29th, Island Falls had the second highest precipitation amount at 2.71 inches. Caribou and Presque Isle were on the lower end of the rainfall spectrum, receiving 1.10 inches and 1.24 respectively.