In early January of 2024, waves washed over the only road connecting the island towns of Deer Isle and Stonington to the mainland, closing it for hours.
Two historic storms that month also dumped ocean debris onto the road, including rocks Deer Isle Town Manager Jim Fisher described as bowling balls. It wasn’t the first time the Deer Isle Causeway had flooded, and it was not likely to be the last.
In the years since those storms, coastal towns with vulnerable seaside roads like these have looked for ways to protect them from sea level rise and more extreme storms, a particularly urgent issue where such roads are a peninsula or island community’s only connection to the mainland.
Doing so is costly and often exceeds what small towns can pay for without help. The process shows the challenges these towns are facing as they try to withstand climate change on the coast.
Moving “coastal resiliency” projects from planning to construction has been difficult for small communities in Hancock County that suffered damage from the 2024 storms, according to a recent study by regional officials published in the Maine Policy Review.
One major difficulty is the steep cost of projects like raising roads, said Bill Zoellick, one of the study’s authors and chair of Gouldsboro’s coastal resilience committee. Designing and permitting can run hundreds of thousands of dollars, with actual construction easily running ten times more, according to the study.
The towns interviewed for the article had limited funds available for roads in tight budgets often largely committed to education, and in some cases also were trying to fund other multimillion dollar projects such as new fire stations and wastewater infrastructure.
At the same time, federal priorities have moved away from climate change projects and construction costs have increased. That means towns may need to secure low-interest loans to fund work before costs rise more, the study said.
At several places throughout the county, vulnerable coastal roads are a public safety concern should they wash out and strand residents from access to emergency services, said Andrew Sankey, director of the county’s emergency management agency.
Those include the Deer Isle causeway, roads connecting residents in the village of Corea to the rest of Gouldsboro, and access to the tip of the Castine peninsula, where the main village and Maine Maritime Academy are located. The Seawall Road in Acadia National Park has also washed out repeatedly in past storms, though it’s a loop that doesn’t restrict resident access.
In Castine, sea level rise projections suggest significant parts of Wadsworth Cove Road and Route 166 would be underwater if sea level rose 8.8 feet, according to the town’s 2023 comprehensive plan. Route 166 is the only road on or off of the “neck” portion of Castine.
The British Canal area that connects the village to the rest of the town can currently flood under strong tides, though it’s rare, according to Sankey.
In Surry, the only road on and off Newbury Neck also has a history of flooding that at times has left about 140 residents stuck and inaccessible to emergency services. It has flooded at the popular Carrying Place Beach several times in recent years.
Cleaning up the aftermath from the January 2024 storms cost the town about $391,000 — around 70 percent of the town road commissioner’s budget, according to select board chair Mary Allen. Surry got Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for that, but it would be hard for the town to sustain future cleanup costs, she said.
The town is set to receive about $2.92 million in congressionally directed spending to help it raise the road about 6 feet, from almost 9 feet to 15 feet above sea level, which engineers say should help it withstand projected sea level rise through the year 2050 and possibly 2100. The overall project is likely to run more than $3.69 million, a gap the town hopes to fill with outside funds and grants.
Surry will be responsible for a 25% match of those funds if residents accept them, which they are set to vote on at a town meeting in April.
The project could present other costs in the future, too, Allen said. She isn’t sure voters will approve the referendum question, in part because of the high price tag and concerns over aesthetic changes at the beach. The town couldn’t raise the road without those federal funds, short of a wealthy benefactor, she said.
“We have to do something, and we can’t wait forever,” she said.
In Deer Isle, the causeway connecting it and Stonington to the mainland flooded with 18 inches of water in the 2024 storms, washing up rocks and seaweed and cutting off road access to the island.
The Maine Department of Transportation plans to raise it with $12 million in congressionally directed spending, which was secured last week after months in federal limbo.
The department was preparing to start the final design phase and planned a public meeting for the spring to share details and get community input, a spokesperson said in December.
In addition to access to emergency services, it’s an economically important connection for Stonington’s busy lobster industry and workers traveling on and off the island, officials have said.
In Gouldsboro, two roads on opposite sides of Corea Harbor — the Crowley Island Causeway and a stream crossing where Corea Road ends at its junction with Francis Pound and Cranberry Point roads — flooded and left parts of the village cut off during the 2024 storms.
Four feet of seawater cut off Francis Pound and Cranberry Point road residents. High tides can cause smaller degrees of flooding regularly, according to the town’s coastal resilience committee.
FEMA will provide around $300,000 to raise the causeway two inches, back to its original height when constructed in the 1980s. That project is in the permitting stage. It probably won’t be enough to withstand even flooding problems in the next decade, Zoellick said, but the town wants to do what it can as soon as possible.
On the other side of the harbor, Gouldsboro has developed permit-ready plans to raise the road two inches and replace its culvert with a 10-foot bridge. That project will cost about $750,000, which the town plans to seek state funds for, according to Zoellick.
The town changed course during the planning phase to choose a less expensive option at the Corea Road junction that could be completed quickly. Like others, he said, Gouldsboro has seen the difference in price tag between addressing problems now and planning 20 years out.
Zoellick expects a state climate adaptation grant program that would cover most of it to be highly competitive as other towns try to carry out similar projects.
His town, and others around the county, can also try to prepare by developing capital improvement plans, looking into taking out loans and supporting volunteers to make the plans happen, he said. Other roads, though, are beyond a town’s control — such as the state-owned Deer Isle Causeway and Route 195 heading from Gouldsboro into Corea.
“We don’t have a choice to not do these things,” he said of making sure the local roads are usable. “So, knowing that, it’s: ‘How do we do that?’”