I like roads that tell you where you’re headed: Waldoboro Road, Nobleboro Road, and the road to nowhere, to name a few. Not every thoroughfare in life is so easily painted, so I appreciate the opportunity taken.
Head down Bristol Road and you’ll see the scars of last January’s storms left where family docks were knocked into the ocean, working piers suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, shoreline construction projects saw years of work slip into a shallow harbor, and the structural identity of our home changed.
Storm surge coupled with an astronomically high tide made for dangerous water levels that pushed up docks from their pilings that weren’t weighted down with fishing gear; waves blew up a section of Route 32; a historic bell house was nearly knocked down; a whole restaurant was cracked in half in Pemaquid Harbor.
Communities between the first storm on Jan. 10, 2024 and the second on Jan. 13, 2024 scrambled to remove debris from the harbors – another surge like the previous one could only be worse if there were several hundred thousand tons of debris in the water. But thanks to quick organization, a lot of damage was mitigated.
While things could have been worse, the January storms changed our home. A year later it’s hard to ignore that evidence.
Seeing community members make their way down to the harbors and piers they knew so well was like watching old friends check in on ill loved ones. It hurt to see our community hurt.
However, the trips down to the harbors and shoreline to watch memories and docks slip into the harbor was the closest thing we had to a wake we attended because of the storms. In short, not a single person sustained life-threatening injuries because of the severe weather events.
A year later, I’m still grateful for that.
If I could predict the future, I’d be a much richer man, but I’m feeling rich enough watching Lincoln County come together the way it has over the last year. It’s what we do, it’s what we’ve done, and it’s what we’ll continue to do as we continue down the road to recovery.
