Tree debris and leaves fall on the Warren Road after heavy wind gust Saturday morning in Pittston. Hundreds of Central Maine Power customers were without power in town, and more than 80,000 lost power statewide. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

WATERVILLE — The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather alert Saturday morning as powerful wind gusts topple trees and knock out power to tens of thousands through central Maine.

Sustained winds between 30 to 40 mph blew through much of western and central Maine on Saturday morning. Gusts reached up to 56 mph in Augusta, 48 mph in Manchester and 47 mph in Waterville, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jon Palmer.

“We’ve been seeing some pretty high winds across New Hampshire and Maine this morning,” Palmer said. “Almost every county in our area has gotten at least 40 mile an hour gusts today.”

The wind storm had knocked out power to nearly 20,000 households across Kennebec and Somerset counties by noontime Saturday along with over 70,000 households statewide, according to Central Maine Power spokesperson Jon Breed, as reports of downed power lines and uprooted trees blocking roads filtered in from throughout the central Maine. By 5 p.m., there were still more than 43,300 CMP customers waiting for power to be restored.

Power restoration efforts are being hampered by high sustained wind gusts and canopies still on the trees, Breed said.

“This is the first big wind storm event that we’ve seen this year, and a lot of trees haven’t really been tested over the summer,” Breed said. “The leaves are still in the trees and on the ground so they’re susceptible to being uprooted, which is what we’ve been seeing lots of today.”

Though acute power outages were reported in Belgrade and Skowhegan, which each had over 1,000 households without electricity by noontime Saturday, power outages were not confined to any particular area of the state, according to both Breed and CMP data.

While Saturday’s wind storm was the first of the year and came early in the season, Palmer said winds were expected to die down Saturday evening and bring cool temperatures with them Sunday morning.

“We’re gonna wake up tomorrow morning with some much calmer winds and likely cooler temperatures,” he said.

Lineworkers have been on hand since last night in preparation for the storm and have been working throughout the state to clear downed trees and re-string wire since about 6 a.m. Saturday, according to Breed.

Many of the lineworkers CMP had planned to send to Florida to aid recovery efforts from Hurricane Milton had their trips canceled in preparation for this week’s wind storm, Breed said.

“We saw this one coming and we doubled up our staffing last night,” Breed said. “You never know what’s coming but we prepare for the worst case scenario every time. That’s one of the reasons we held our crews back from the Milton response.”

While outages persisted and spread through much of the state, Breed said CMP crews had restored electricity to over 20,000 people by noon Saturday.

Restoration efforts may be delayed for many until wind speeds die down Saturday afternoon as lineworkers must stay on the ground when wind speeds are above 30 mph.

Electricity will likely be restored for most by Saturday evening or Sunday morning, Breed said.