LUBEC, Maine — This winter, people in Lubec have just about given up on measuring the drifts of snow that have crept up to touch second-story windows and that have been sculpted by the wind into dunes that look as if they would be more at home in the desert than on the Maine coast.
They’re still too busy trying to figure out what to do with the six feet of snow that has been dumped on the Down East community in the last few weeks, and with the two feet that have been predicted to fall during this weekend’s blizzard.
“Everyone says, ‘Oh my, the next storm’s gonna be a real humdinger,’” Rachel Rubeor, a retired schoolteacher originally from Michigan, said Friday. “My experience with any storm here is that the snowplows are doing everything they can to plow the main roads, but there’s no extra equipment to clear the sidewalks. No extra equipment to dig away and dispose of the huge mounds of snow. It becomes prohibitive. The town suffers from it.”
By all accounts, Lubec’s infrastructure has been strained by the record-breaking snowfall.
During the last major snowstorm two weeks ago, a town water main broke and at one point all three of the town’s plow trucks were out of commission, according to Vern McKimmey, who works at Roosevelt Campobello International Park. The town administrator had to drive all the way to Bangor in the storm to get a part to fix one of the trucks. The three members of the public works crew were working around the clock to fix what had broken. But the storm could not dampen the neighborly spirit of the 1,300-resident community located right on the Canadian border, he said.
“What happened was that everybody else who had a plow truck came to help the rest of the town,” he said. “It was quite remarkable. There were people clearing the streets downtown. They were volunteers with private trucks and backhoes. The vast majority of the people who live here have been very proud of the town pulling together.”
John Sutherland, the Lubec administrator, said the community is dealing just fine with the generous hand of snow that has been dealt to the coast of Maine.
“We’ve been getting hit pretty hard. During storm after storm, we’ve been having equipment go down,” he said. “We’re in Down East Maine, and we’re resilient. If your neighbor needs help, you help them.”
Carol Dennison, the chair of the Lubec Board of Selectmen, said she is hoping the “hammering” of snow will help motivate the town to finally vote in favor of building a new town garage and a new sand and salt shed. Community officials have been trying to get them built for four years, but the residents who were able to come out to a snowy meeting in January voted against spending $1 million total for the two projects.
“It would be a lot easier to help with the roads if we didn’t have to pound these big frozen chunks of sand and salt out of these big sand piles that are quickly disappearing under the snow,” she said. “We need to have a safe working environment for the [public works] guys. They need a garage. They’ve been working outside. It makes me shiver just thinking about it.”
Lots of people in Lubec have been staying connected, especially regarding the winter storms, with the help of the Lubec Community Bulletin Board page on Facebook. That is a place where people who have needed a helping hand have found it. Some — including the ill and the elderly — were stuck in their houses because of the deep snow, others had frozen pipes, or needed help plowing their driveways. One woman asked for a hand shoveling a path to her animal pens.
Other folks used the forum more to express appreciation for the hardworking public works crews and to the many people who showed up to help.
“The heart of Lubec has always been its people and this was evident once again during the recent and ongoing snowstorms,” Suzanne McCurdy wrote on Feb. 5. “No matter the need, someone was there to help. That someone could have been a friend, a neighbor or perhaps a complete stranger, all with a plow, a shovel or a cup of coffee. When the need arises, we work together as one.”
Rubeor, 72, said that this sentiment rings very true for her. She has already asked some people who live farther in the country to stay at her in-town home during the weekend storm, so they’ll be closer to services.
“We all hang together,” she said. “I spent January in Chicago. I couldn’t wait to get back here. It’s like you’re missing something if you’re not here.”