Power outage restored in Falmouth
Nov. 13—Power went out in Falmouth, including along Route 1, Sunday morning.
It was restored relatively quickly.
Falmouth Police said the outage was due to a primary wire that broke. Before noon power was restored and everything was back to normal, said a dispatcher.
According the Central Maine Power Spokeswoman Catharine Hartnett said Sunday the outage was caused by a squirrel.
"What happened is there's a place on top of the pole where there's a bare spot" where wires connect the transmitter, she said. Occasionally a bird or squirrel will get on that bare spot and cause an outage.
The pole was on Johnson Road which intersects with Route 1, Hartnett said. The outage began at 9:40 and power was restored around 11 a.m., and 880 customers were impacted, Hartnett said.
CMP has an ongoing program to update equipment to cover those bare spots so a bird or squirrel won't prompt outages. "We are working to reduce those incidents," Hartnett said.
The outage prompted some businesses to close temporarily. At the Rosemont Market and Bakery, an employee said that power was out for about 20 minutes, prompting them to lock the door and hang a "closed" sign.
"But we're back open" and customers were inside again, she said.
Central Maine Power's power outage list showed there were 2,387 customers without power Sunday morning. By noon, outages in Cumberland were reduced to 215, according to CMP's web page.
