On Tuesday morning, Lincoln County Commissioners were provided with surprising information about this weekend’s storm in a briefing by County EMA Director Tod Hartung. At the height of the storm, more than 25,000 Lincoln County residents were without electrical power.

“Usually, the coast is spared from the full brunt of winter storms,” Hartung explained. “But in this case, the coast was hit the hardest.”

Hartung spoke at the County Commissioners regular meeting.

Power outages were the most significant in Knox, Lincoln, Waldo and Hancock counties. By Monday morning, the Central Maine Power outage report at 11:20 a.m. showed that, of Lincoln County’s 26,689 CMP customers, 19,646 or 73 percent were without power. The same report showed outages of 93 percent in Hancock County, 85 percent in Waldo County and 75 percent in Knox County.

Hartung explained that the County Emergency Management Agency worked closely with Central Maine Power’s liaison for Lincoln County, Sandy Milliken. Central Maine Power had not anticipated the effect of the storm, with heavy wet snow and 50 mph wind gusts making trees and utility poles snap.

In addition to work being done by CMP crews, the utility contracted with On Target Utility Services of Gardiner to assist in bringing homes and businesses back online. County Emergency Management coordinated with Central Maine Power to direct utility crews to reported problem areas.

At the Lincoln County Communications Center, an additional 281 storm related “911” emergency calls were handled by the existing staff of four who had been assigned to work on Sunday. The communications team handled the storm without needing to add additional staff.

Many of those calls were not true emergencies and frustrated CMP customers called 911 after they were unable to reach CMP.

“We need to remind folks what 911 is for,” Joseph Westrich, 911 supervisor said.

Within Lincoln County, the coast fared the worst. Ninety-nine percent of Boothbay residents were without power as of the Monday morning CMP report. The same was true for the towns of Bremen, Bristol and South Bristol.

Edgecomb and Newcastle were the next hardest hit with outages of 98 and 94 percent. Lincoln County EMA and Communications applauded the work of the local police departments, the sheriff’s office and fire departments in assisting residents and maintaining public safety.

As of Tuesday at 8:15 a.m., Central Maine Power showed that outages in Lincoln County had dropped from the storm high of 73 percent to 29 percent. There is still no word from Central Maine Power when all affected customers will have power restored. On Tuesday morning, it appeared that one voting place in Nobleboro was still without power and the County EMA might need to secure a generator so that local residents could vote.

Even the County Emergency Management Directors were not spared. Hartung lost power at his residence and email transmission between the County EMA Directors was not working.

“We’re playing catch up,” Hartung explained.