Hail Damages Cars, Windows in Northern Maine

Golfball-size hail damaged cars and windows Saturday in a sequel to violent thunderstorms a day earlier that uprooted trees, knocked down power lines and left thousands of Mainers without electricity.

Hail pelted this town at the state’s northern tip around lunch hour and also hit the nearby St. John Valley communities of Frenchville, Lille, Van Buren and Grand Isle, the National Weather Service said.

“Yesterday was more of a wind event. Today, it’s more of a hail event,” said Leeann Allegretto, a meteorologist in the NWS office in Caribou.

No injuries were reported, but police said the severe hail damaged hoods, roofs and trunks of vehicles parked on the lot at Martin Ford, a Fort Kent dealership.

The hail also took its toll at Northern Maine Medical Center, where two windows were broken and employee vehicles were damaged.

The storm was blamed on a cold front that was moving slowly across the state and causing unstable conditions.

Utility crews were at work for much of the day restoring electricity to homes and businesses left in the dark by Friday’s powerful line of thunderstorms that blew down an old barn in Caribou and ripped the roof off the Fraser Paper in Masardis, where a funnel cloud was reported.

By late Saturday morning, fewer than 1,400 homes and businesses remained off line in the Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. service area, most of them in Hancock County. More than 9,000 customers of Bangor Hydro and Maine Public Service Co. had been without service the night before.