Rain tests Mainers’ mettle

Jay Whittemore, foreman on the new Bangor-Brewer bridge construction site, knew it when he reported for work Monday. A massive barge carrying a crane had broken loose from the Penobscot River bottom and was pushed out of position by the rushing current.

Brian Enman, a golf pro, knew it when the sun finally shone on Sunday. He still couldn’t let the electric carts out on the soggy greenery of Bangor Municipal Golf Course.

Sharen Jarvis, a hay grower, knows it every time she looks out on some of her prime fields in East Corinth. She sees standing water.

Rain reigns in Maine in the summer of ’96.

“I’ve been here 30 years and I’ve never seen it this wet this late,” said Enman, who could not recall another July day when cart rentals had to be withheld to protect the course.

In his 15 years of construction work, Whittemore said he had never seen a river displace a barge.

“We’ve got a lot of current here today,” Whittemore said of the frothing Penobscot.

“We’ve cut about 40 percent of what we normally would have done by now,” sighed Jarvis, noting the only thing the weather has been good for to date is fixing the haying equipment in the barn.

The National Weather Service in Gray confirmed Monday what everyone who has had to postpone a summertime activity knew already — Maine is getting much more rain than normal, thanks most recently to Tropical Storm Bertha.

According to the NWS, Bertha dumped an average of 4.25 inches of rain on the state from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday. Normal rainfall in the Bangor area for the entire month of July is 3.32 inches.

Add Bertha’s total to the first 12 days of the month, and Bangor already has experienced its wettest July on record, according to WLBZ-TV meteorologist Steve McKay. Bangor had 5.8 inches of rain this month as of last night. The previous record was 5.04 inches. Now consider there’s almost half a month left to add to the record.

Data at the NWS indicates the total rainfall statewide this month already ranges from 5 to 10 inches. The larger amount, 10 inches, fell in a band including coastal Cumberland County, Sagadahoc, Androscoggin, Kennebec and southern Somerset and Franklin counties. The remainder of the state tallied an average of 5 inches.

Those numbers are all nearly double the averages.

July could be overlooked as a fluke if it wasn’t for June.

Bangor received 5.69 inches of rain last month, shy of the record 6.63 inches. But Bangor’s normal June average is 3.34 inches.

“It’s definitely one of the wettest summers we’ve seen,” said McKay.

In Bertha’s wake, a flood warning was still in effect Monday afternoon on the Kennebec River. Forecasters said the water had begun to drop below flood stage in Augusta about midafternoon, but was not expected to drop in Skowhegan until later Monday evening.

A dispatcher at the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department said the county experienced minor flooding problems with a few people evacuated for a short time in the Anson area during the weekend.

In Hartland, Great Moose Lake’s 198-square mile watershed brought lake levels to more than 2.5 feet above normal for the month. Town Manager Peggy Morgan said water was running through the dam gates and over the 19-foot spillway on Monday afternoon, barely keeping up with the amount of water coming into the lake. Morgan said the dam was monitored regularly over the weekend to control the water levels, and will continue to be monitored until the high water subsides.

In Newport, Public Works Director Jack Wilson said crews worked on the Sebasticook Lake dam through the night Saturday to control the water level. He said the lake rose about 6 inches from the weekend rain. However, he said, the lake level had dropped about 2 inches before the heavy weekend rain began.

Several towns reported washouts of some rural roads.

Bridge construction crews from Reed & Reed Inc. arrived at work on Monday morning to find that the Penobscot River had tossed around their barge. Waters pushed the barge 25 to 30 feet down the river at the Bangor-Brewer bridge construction site. The river’s force pushed the barge out of place despite spuds driven down through the barge and into the river bottom. The spuds, which are long pipes, were dragged along the bottom.

Whittemore said the barge came to a stop on its own and construction was not interrupted due to its short voyage.

Enman said the rainy spring put Bangor Muni $27,000 behind in greens fees compared to the same period last year.

“We’re holding our own in July, but we’ve still got two ponds where there shouldn’t be — on No. 4 on the old course and No. 5 on the new course,” Enman said.

Portland and the rest of coastal Maine did not receive as much rain as inland areas over the weekend, according to Dan Zacharias, a meteorologist with NWS. Portland recorded 3.03 inches in the Saturday to Sunday 24-hour period. But that alone is more than half the 5.22 inches that falls there in a normal July.

Gorham recorded the highest volume of rain in the 24-hour period at 4.68 inches, thanks to Bertha.