Lightning struck an apartment building in Waterville Wednesday night during a swath of thunder storms, popping a couple breakers, but it did not start a fire, according to the Waterville Fire Department.

The central Maine thunder storms also knocked out power for more than 18,000 Central Maine Power customers as of 6:30 p.m., with more than 5,000 homes and businesses without power in Franklin, Kennebec and Somerset counties. By 10:30 p.m. 3,577 in the three counties still were without power.

A little after 6 p.m., a thunderous bang sounded in downtown Waterville as lightning struck 5 Silver Place, according to Waterville fire Capt. Rodney Alderman. Firefighters responded but there were no flames, Alderman said. They had to reset the breakers and turn the building over to maintenance.

Thunder started in the Waterville area a little before 5 p.m., followed by spots of heavy rain and lightning. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning until 9:15 p.m. for central Maine.

The majority of outages were in Oxford County, with more than 6,700 in the dark, followed by more than 4,400 in Piscataquis County and about 3,700 in Franklin County. Nearly 1,000 were without power in Somerset County with more than in the dark in Kennebec County at 6:30.

By 10:30 p.m. overall outages were 12,560. There were 2,635 in Franklin County, 773 in Somerset County and 169 in Kennebec County.

Jesse Scardina — 861-9239

jscardina@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @jessescardina

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