Ogunquit News
Island of Ogunquit
"Never seen anything like this" says Chief Smith
By C. Ayn Douglass
Raging waters tore these culverts from a location under Captain Thomas Road in Ogunquit, sending them downstream as the storm continued through the day on Monday.
Photo by Steve Rasche
The Ogunquit River roars to the sea alongside this Ogunquit home in the midst of this weekend's rain and flood event in Southern York County.
Photo by Steve Rasche
Emergency Management Director and Fire Chief Ed Smith said, "I've lived here all my life and I've never seen anything like this. I've seen it bad, but nothing like this."
Smith's department has been receiving about twenty calls a day from residents whose cellars are flooded. Without sump pumps they are at the mercy of the weather until fire department personnel can get to them. Those calls are prioritized by how close the water line is to the electrical circuitry to the homes.
"We put them on the list," Smith said, "and get to them as soon as we can. The list is growing by the minute. We just pumped six feet of water out of Gorges Grant Motel. The biggest threat is electrical fires. We have to get the power turned off."
As of Monday afternoon, there were twenty calls and the fire personnel, many of whom have worked through 48-hour shifts with little or no sleep, had responded to 13 of them. Smith, himself, had been on duty since 3:00 a.m. the previous morning.
"I haven't had much sleep, like everybody else," he laughed.
Adding to the department's workload is the washout situation on many of the town's residential roads and Route 1.
Captain Thomas Road has been especially hard-hit with a huge section of the road washed out when two culverts broke. Residents on side streets such as Autumn River Lane located off Captain Thomas were advised to evacuate.
Sharma Damren, who works for the Town in the administration end of the police department, lives on Towhee Lane, also off Captain Thomas Road, said, "I found myself on a little island at my house. I had to get a ride in this morning because my driveway has washed away and my car can't go forward or backward."
Damren's home is on a septic system and well and she, like many others who are not on town water and sewage, is worried about the contamination of her water supply.
"I'm buying water right now and avoiding adding to the septic system by doing laundry."
Despite the Red Cross opening the shelter at the fire station in Ogunquit, there was no one seeking housing there on Sunday. Red Cross volunteers Barbara Jurgen and her son Peter Pierce drove to Ogunquit from South Portland which, under normal conditions, takes about 45 minutes, but with portions of the turnpike down to one lane, took an hour-and-a-half.
The two were prepared with food from Hannaford, Dunkin' Donuts and the Ogunquit House of Pizza to oversee the shelter, but by 5:00 p.m. had had no refugees from the storm come in.
On Monday York summer resident Joanne Alinovi decided to leave her Morningside Drive property in York Beach and utilize the Ogunquit shelter.
"My house is on pilings and I've had the cottage since 1968," Alinovi said. "I've been thinking about leaving for the last two or three days and when I woke up this morning and saw what was expected on CNN, I thought this may go on for a long time so when I saw the pattern, I put on plastic bags up to my knees and I packed a bag and called the fire department for a ride. I've been coming to York my whole life - 75 years - and I've never seen anything like this."
Town Manager Phil Clark has just begun to assess the damage from a monetary standpoint and said the town has started a Mother's Day Storm Account from which initial expenses such as pumps, generators, roping, signing have been drawn. The Town will seek re-imbursement from FEMA partly as a joint effort with the Town of Wells as much of the road structural damage is the responsibility of both towns.
"We've had 77 calls for water removal so far. Everything from a foot of water in a basement to the 80,000 gallons we pumped out of Gorges Grant. I've just begun to fill out the forms for FEMA, but the bridge damage will be shared between Wells and Ogunquit and that will be close to a million dollars. The two eight-foot culverts destroyed on Captain Thomas we're thinking might be replaced by a bridge. The county has to have a minimum of 1.4 million dollars in damage to qualify for FEMA funds and we'll have no trouble meeting that number," he said.
With the Memorial Day holiday looming in just two weeks, Clark is confident it will be business as usual by then.
"Last year we had a storm the week of Memorial Day and Public Works had it so no one would ever know it happened by the weekend. Our town crews do an outstanding job and I have no doubt with a couple of days of drying out, we'll be pretty much back to normal," Clark said.
C. Ayn Douglass can be reached via email at cayndouglass@yorkindependent.net
