Weather Hinders Northeast Repair Crews

Foul weather returned to Maine and northern New York on Tuesday, making it even harder for utility crews to restore electricity to the hundreds of thousands left without power by last week’s ice storm.

President Clinton declared all but far northern Maine to be a federal disaster area. Maine officials estimate there is $36 million in damage from the storm, which raised havoc in four states and three Canadian provinces.

In Maine, an estimated 300,000 residents prepared for another night without electricity. For some that means no heat or water since Thursday, when ice-covered trees began falling across power lines.

“Freezing rain and rain showers during the day slowed progress and contributed to new outages in several areas, but hundreds of line and tree crews are tackling the new problems and continuing their work on the massive earlier damage,” Central Maine Power said in a statement.

The power company had 600,000 people without service over the weekend, and its headquarters in Augusta resembled a war room, with planners huddled around phones as reports came in.

Cots and a huge food-service area were set up for the 1,300 utility crew members who have come from as far away as Maryland and Nova Scotia. More convoys of repair trucks were on the way.

The National Guard is out in force to clear downed trees and remove power lines frozen to the ground. The troops, who are also delivering generators and water, were ordered to remain on active duty through Friday.

A cold rain also began falling Tuesday morning on New York’s North Country, where hundreds of people have been forced to use emergency shelters.

Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. said about 87,000 customers remain without power as a force of 3,000 worked around the clock on repairs. “It could be four weeks or longer before power is restored to all customers.” the company warned.

The New York Power Authority said it was able to restore power to five of seven municipal systems. Still down is a major high-voltage line that moves power between New York and Canada.

The storm is blamed for six deaths in New York--three from carbon monoxide poisoning, two from heart attacks while clearing snow and one in a tree-cutting accident.

Vermont was one bright spot Tuesday, as officials there said outages had been reduced to 3,500 customers. Vermont utilities began sending crews to assist Maine, New York and Quebec.

Clinton’s declaration will make federal aid to repair damage to public property available in 15 Maine counties. Officials warned the aid would not be available to the private utilities, which have suffered the bulk of the damage.

Hundreds of people have been forced to live in shelters. Many more are staying in their darkened homes and using the emergency facilities to obtain hot showers and fresh drinking water.