Thunderstorms, some severe, moved over parts of eastern, central and northern Maine on Sunday causing power outages and some flooding.
Storms that tore through Blue Hill on Sunday triggered flash floods and led to the evacuation of Blue Hill Memorial Hospital. Nearby, a lightning strike caused a house to catch fire.
Six inches of water flooded the lower floor of the hospital because of the torrential downpour.
“The flooding affected our dietary department, which includes the hospital’ s main kitchen, so we can’ t feed our patients,” said hospital spokeswoman Deb Turner.
The situation was declared a Level 2 disaster, the hospital’ s highest disaster level, because patient care needed to be stopped, said Turner.
“Level 2 is declared if the situation is of major proportion,” said Turner. “We do not have an operating kitchen so we cannot take care of our patients properly, and it will take us some time to clean up.”
Turner added that no medical equipment was damaged and no patients were injured during the flooding.
The Blue Hill Fire Department helped remove the water from the area using wet vacuums.
The hospital’ s nine patients were moved using ambulances from Blue Hill and Ellsworth to Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth.
MCMH administrator Doug Jones Turner said Sunday the affected areas would be cleaned and sanitized and he expected the hospital to open by 8 a.m. today.
Meanwhile, lightning from the storm started a house fire on Pleasant Street in Blue Hill.
Fire departments from Sedgwick, Bar Harbor, Brooklin, Brooksville, Penobscot and Blue Hill went to the scene.
“I heard a loud bang and sparks came out of the outlet,” said the homeowner, Roberta Wessel, as she watched firefighters climb the roof of her house. “I went to my [neighbor’ s] house just in case and all of a sudden I looked out and saw smoke.”
The fire was concentrated in the attic and around the chimney, according to Sedgwick Fire Chief David Carter.
It took firefighters more than two hours to extinguish the blaze completely.
The house was not a total loss, and Wessel was insured. No injuries were reported.
The thunderstorms also were felt at the Fishnet Restaurant on Route 172 at the foot of Blue Hill as 3? feet of water flooded its parking lot.
“It came out of nowhere,” said Ken Freeley of Sebago, a friend of the restaurant’ s owner.
“All the water from big Blue Hill came rushing down on us,” said Doris Kurtis, part owner of the restaurant.
Freeley said he waded through chest-deep water and pulled the covers off nearby manholes because they were getting clogged.
When that didn’ t work he used a plow truck to move the water away from the restaurant.
“I had to stop because it was coming up too high on the truck,” he said.
Nearly 2 feet of water entered the restaurant and customers had to stand on tables to avoid it.
Kurtis said the restaurant doesn’ t have flood insurance, but doesn’ t expect there to be any major damage.
“Most of it we can clean up, hopefully,” said Kurtis.
Victor Nouhan, the lead forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Caribou, said there were reports of flooded roads in Ellsworth but traffic was able to get around the flooded areas.
Scattered lightning strikes in Washington, Hancock, Piscataquis and Penobscot counties led to about 5,000 Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. customers losing electricity. There were no reports of wind damage.
Power was restored to all but 416 customers, including 227 in Hancock County, 119 in Washington County and scattered outages in northern Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, by 5 p.m. Sunday.
The NWS issued flood warnings and watches for most of Maine on Saturday.
Three separate storms south of Estcourt Station, west of Allagash and one over Somerset and Piscataquis counties each produced up to 2 inches of rain an hour Saturday, causing brooks, streams and small rivers to rise with flooding along country roads, on farmland and along urban streets because of ponding water.
Damage around Allagash was minimal by Sunday afternoon, with a road washed out near Walker Brook and several loose canoes floating down the river, according to Roy Gardner, longtime Allagash weather watcher.
Across the border in St. Francis, New Brunswick, 6 to 7 inches of rain washed out the main road leading to Glazier Lake in several places and stranded scores of campers and cottage owners, including some U.S. citizens.
A Canadian military helicopter spent much of Sunday ferrying people to a command post set up at the St. Francis Arena. No injuries were reported.
The rains pushed the St. Francis River over its banks and over the bridge in Connor, several miles west of St. Francis.
“We expect that bridge to be repaired tonight,” Cyr said.
As for the road beyond, he said there were several washouts, some 20 feet deep and more than 100 feet long.
“The situation was a flash flood,” Doris Blanchard, regional coordinator for the New Brunswick Emergency Management Organization, said Sunday afternoon. “The area cut off is all cottages with no phone access.”
The large Cormorant helicopter can hold up to 20 passengers and as of 3 p.m. Eastern time, Blanchard said about 50 people remained needing to be evacuated.
The road leading to the camps at Glazier Lake is expected to be closed for repairs for at least a month.
This pattern of heavy rains with intermittent breaks of sun is expected to last through the coming week, according to the NWS, thanks to a stalled upper-level low spinning over Hudson Bay.
BDN writers Jessica Bloch in Bangor and Michael Dabrieo in Ellsworth and freelance writer Julia Bayly in Fort Kent contributed to this report.