Over 170,000 Mainers are still waiting for their electricity to be restored two days after a spring nor’easter tore through the state Thursday night, bringing down trees and power lines.

The number of outages is down from a peak of nearly 250,000 Friday morning, but a large swath of the state is still in the dark. As of Saturday morning, Emera Maine is reporting that 38,463 customers were still without power. Central Maine Power Co. has 132,002 customers without power.

Penobscot County has a total of 34,694 customers without power as of Saturday morning, making it the largest affected area for Emera Maine. Nearly 6,000 customers are without power in Washington and Hancock counties combined. About 8,500 people are without power in northern Penobscot County and Piscatiquas County.

For Center Maine Power Co. Waldo County appears to be the hardest hit region it services, with 18,000 out of 25,000 customers without power. Down the coast, nearly half of Lincoln County was without power, with 12,970 outages. Kennebec County is currently experiencing about 17,000 outages. Central Maine Power is also reporting thousands of outages in every other county it serves.

Central Maine Power Co. said on its Twitter account Saturday morning that power will likely be restored to most customers by Sunday night. Emera Maine said service restoration estimates will be released later today, according to its website.

“We worked through the night and we have more than 2000 people working hard to restore outages today,” President and CEO of CMP Doug Herling said in a statement.. “We understand this is a holiday weekend and that Maine people must stay home because of state orders. We’re working as quickly and safely as possible to repair the system damage and will be out until the last customer is restored.”

The outages are compounding frustrations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that is forcing Mainers to stay at home.

However, enduring prolonged power outages isn’t a new experience for many Mainers. The ice storm of 1998 shut down schools for weeks, left thousands without power or heat and killed six people. In October 2017, a windstorm knocked out power to half of the state, leaving some in the dark for a week.

Gov. Janet Mills said Friday that power restoration efforts would likely go into the weekend, having directed power companies to restore power to medical infrastructure first. She said she understands that it is frustrating for many residents to have to deal with both a lack of electricity and precautions in Maine about the deadly disease.

“It is frustrating to be asked to meet new and seemingly never-ending challenges with courage, patience and compassion,” Mills said. “Everyone is wondering how this will all last. It’s okay to be tired and frustrated.”

This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.