The storm that hit Maine earlier this week did some of its worst damage along the coast, where flooding approached record levels in some places, and coastal structures — including docks, roads, wharfs, buildings and sea walls — were battered, destroyed or set adrift.
Making matters worse is that another southeasterly storm is expected to slam the state this weekend, bringing more high winds and large waves that could further the destruction and cause additional power outages.
“This is the scale you would expect from a hurricane, or worse,” said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “This is really, really bad, and we might have another one hitting on Saturday. There is a lot of stress and anxiety to do more cleanup so that we are ready to get walloped again on Saturday.”
The storm appears to have set at least one record, bringing record high water levels at a Bar Harbor monitoring site, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Peter Slovinsky, a marine geologist at the Maine Geological Survey, said NOAA’s preliminary data also suggest the storm brought the third-highest water levels recorded in Portland and the second highest in the Down East town of Cutler.
The storm set those records despite the fact that tides were not as high as they could be from Tuesday to Wednesday, but Slovinsky warned that “the very strong southeaster” expected this weekend will coincide with higher tides.
“Depending on when the peak of the storm hits, water levels might exceed what we just experienced,” he said.
The recent flooding altered some sections of the coast, lowering beaches, damaging sea walls and eroding dunes by 10 to 15 feet in some places, according to Slovinsky. He said that the coastal flooding was worsened in some places by rain and melting snow, which added to the stress on culverts and made it harder for the floods to recede even as the tide fell.
It’s still too early to assess the full extent of damage from the storm, which the Maine Department of Marine Resources called “unprecedented.” Homeowners and businesses are now being urged to report any damage to help the state get a better understanding. In light of the storm, Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday that she has declared a state of civil emergency for all eight of Maine’s coastal counties, which is meant to help with recovery efforts and preparations for the next storm this weekend.
Martens said he’s heard of damage all along the coast, but many anecdotes have come from fishermen in the midcoast.
He has heard of a number of family-owned wharves that were destroyed. In one case, he said, a lobsterman in Georgetown lost all the traps that were stored in one. In Port Clyde, he said, a lobster co-op saw chest-high flood waters destroy equipment such as freezers and a forklift and carry away a floating dock.
“It was just a perfect storm of everything horrible that could hit our coast at the same time for the working waterfront,” Martens said.
The damage extended to other sections of the coast as well. In southern Maine, a seawall was damaged in Biddeford, and workers were busy repairing it on Thursday.
On the other end of the coast, the towns of Deer Isle and Stonington, like most towns with direct exposure to the ocean, were heavily affected.
Part of Route 15 on the Little Deer Isle side of the Deer Isle-Sedgwick bridge, which connects the towns to the mainland, was damaged by the storm surge. For about two hours, the causeway between Deer Isle and Little Deer Isle, which the vast majority of local residents use to get to and from the mainland, was submerged underwater.
Jim Fisher, Deer Isle’s town manager, said that he drove along the causeway Wednesday morning when it already was under a couple inches of water, and had to be careful not to strike debris that the waves had tossed into the roadway.
“It was touch and go when I crossed,” he said. ‘It was a minefield of rocks.”
The vulnerability of the low-lying causeway has become a concern for the two towns and for the state, which last summer began developing plans to improve it and make it less prone to storm damage. In the meantime, state officials have grown accustomed to shoring up the sides of the existing causeway whenever a storm eats away at its edges.
“We really got walloped,” Fisher said of the storm, which also washed out a couple of the town’s local roads. “This is what climate change looks like.”
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At the same time that the town is trying to fix the damage from Wednesday, it is keeping an eye on Saturday, when high tide will crest a few minutes before noon and is predicted to be a foot higher than the high tide that submerged the causeway on Wednesday.
“It’s absolutely going to happen,” Fisher said of water covering the causeway again.
Kathleen Billings. Stonington’s town manager, said that at the height of the storm on Wednesday, about four feet of water covered a parking lot by the town’s fire station. The fire station furnace was flooded with sea water, several buildings were flooded and wooden piers all along the waterfront were dislodged by the pounding waves.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much of the waterfront compromised and destroyed,” Billings said. “That storm was wicked. Worst I’ve ever seen.”
The vast majority of the island’s 3,000 or so residents lost power during the storm and, though most had it restored by Thursday afternoon, Mildred Nevells didn’t want to wait. She packed up her car Thursday morning, having lost her power Tuesday night, and went to stay with her ex-husband in Bangor.
Nevells, 73, said she had no heat in her mobile home, no way to cook, and no way to take a shower.
“I had to buy water to flush my toilet,” she said. “I’ve been living alone for 20 years, but it’s not so bad when you have power.”
Nevells said her neighbors will call her in Bangor when the power comes back on Sunset Avenue, but she will probably wait to see what happens this weekend before she returns.
“Maybe I’ll just stay up there,” she said. “I’ve got everything with me. My car is loaded.”
BDN photojournalist Troy R. Bennett contributed reporting.