enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Lineman Dwight Havu restores power Thursday along Dingley Spring Road in Gorham after heavy icing on trees broke power lines.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

A CMP crew restores power to homes Thursday off Oak Hill Road in the Standish area after heavy icing on trees broke power lines.

enlarge Staff photo by John Patriquin

One resident of School Street in Standish has approached winter with humor: The snow is free for the shoveling today.

NUMBERS FOR COLD DAYS 38 – Today's expected high temperature -11 – Wind chill expected Saturday morning in Portland 14,248 – Number of customers without power Thursday night 300 – Number of crews working on power-line repairs

Keith Cook’s commute Thursday on Route 231 in New Gloucester took him back 10 years, as he drove past birches bowed by ice and power lines downed by overloaded branches.

“It was just unbelievable. It looked like the storm of ’98 all over again,” said Cook, a detective with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, referring to the ice storm that shut down the state that year.

Cook was one of 79,000 Central Maine Power Co. customers who lost power in Wednesday’s storm, which dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain on southern and central Maine.

Utility crews from CMP and elsewhere in New England worked through Thursday night and into today to restore power to thousands who remained without electricity as temperatures dropped into the teens.

By Thursday night, CMP had restored power to all but 14,248 customers, most concentrated in the Lewiston and Augusta areas. Other outage totals varied widely. Alfred had 1,886 residents without power, Augusta had 4,773, Bridgton had 242, Lewiston had 7,340, and Portland had four.

The company said outages would persist into today in parts of interior York and Cumberland counties, and parts of Oxford, Androscoggin and Kennebec counties.

“More than 300 line workers from CMP and other utilities and contractors have been out all day repairing the damage to our system,” CMP spokesman John Carroll said in a prepared statement Thursday. “We have completed repair work in our Fairfield and Rockland service areas, and are nearly finished in the midcoast. This will allow us to move more crews and equipment to the harder-hit areas.”

CMP is working with county emergency management agencies to make sure there are emergency shelters in hard-hit areas.

Shelters were set up in Augusta and Litchfield, and daytime warming centers were available in Lewiston and Winthrop.

Gov. John Baldacci signed an emergency declaration Wednesday to allow power crews from other states to come to Maine and help restore electricity. Crews from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and other Maine utilities, such as Bangor Hydro, were helping, said Gail Rice, a CMP spokeswoman.

Cable services also were affected by the storm. About 22,000 Time Warner Cable customers lost service, about 6 percent of the company’s accounts statewide. Cable television and Internet service were expected to be fully restored by midday today.

No storms are in the forecast for the next few days. This morning will be partly cloudy, with clearing later in the day and snow showers in the mountains that could produce 1 to 2 inches of fresh snow. Tonight, temperatures were expected to drop to the high teens on the coast and between 10 and 15 degrees just inland, said Jim Hayes, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray. Wind chills could drop to 11 below in Portland by early Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

The number of homes and businesses that lost power in Wednesday’s storm was the most since a storm in April caused about 100,000 outages. The ice storm that struck in January 1998 cut power to 600,000 people.

State officials warned residents who were using gasoline- powered generators or kerosene heaters to make sure they were run in well-vented areas, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. Public works crews continued to clean up after the storm, which flooded many streets and intersections, then iced over as temperatures dropped.

Salt supplies, already lean in many communities, were further depleted.

Cleanup wasn’t just for the officials. Homeowners battled to clear ice-encrusted driveways and sidewalks.

Bill Harnsberger attacked the thick ice that coated the walkway in front of his house on Pitt Street in Portland with a pick ax.

“I can’t find salt,” he...