Waterlogged Rain sends rivers, streams overflowing across Maine

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Sun in the south, snow in the north and flooding all over.

That about summed it up for the state’s mishmash of weather Friday, as Mainers endured their second bout of flooding in less than a month and prepared for more rain today.

“We’re going to have high water for a while,” Lynette Miller of the Maine Emergency Management Agency said Friday. Miller reiterated the agency’s warning to gawkers and boaters to stay clear of flooded rivers and their dangerous currents.

Friday’s rainfall totals fell dramatically compared with what was generally a record-setting, though far short of biblical, deluge Thursday – even if it felt biblical. The full impact of Thursday’s rain still is coming, warned Ken Wallingford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou.

Friday’s calm was “definitely helping, but the larger rivers take awhile to crest, so even though the precipitation stopped, the larger rivers are continuing to rise and they will crest over the weekend,” Wallingford said Friday.

The Penobscot River near and above Eddington and Enfield and the entire St. John River are expected to flood this weekend, the meteorologist said, while weather service and state emergency management officials are watching every other major state waterway.

The Kennebec River crested 5 to 6 feet above flood stage early Friday in Augusta, inundating parking lots and sending water lapping against rear doors and windows of Water Street buildings.

The brief respite from rain expected overnight Friday should continue well into tonight before another storm is expected to pour up to an inch of water on the state into Sunday morning, Wallingford said.

Rainfall totals statewide Friday were more on par with seasonal averages after Thursday’s pounding.

In Caribou, 0.77 inch of rain fell as of 4 p.m. Friday to break a record of 0.66 inch that fell on that date in 1979. Thursday’s rainfall in Caribou was 1.67 inches, beating a record of 1.65 inches set on the same day in 1973.

In Bangor, only one-hundredth of an inch fell Friday, compared with Thursday’s record 2.35 inches for the date, while in Millinocket, 2.48 inches fell Thursday, breaking a record of 2.4 inches set for that day in 1923. About 0.78 inch of rain fell in Millinocket Friday, Wallingford said.

Totals added up to 4 inches in parts of eastern Maine and 8 inches in the Knox County town of Cushing. Amid the flooding, Fort Kent received 8.5 inches of snow on top of 1.15 inches of rain, and the National Weather Service said total snow accumulations could add up to a foot in higher terrain of northern Maine.

In Milford, about a dozen homes on Route 2 in the Costigan section of town were completely surrounded by water, Milford Fire Chief Chris Matson said late Friday night.

Flooding had been a problem all day with authorities closing Greenfield Road at 6:30 in the morning. Matson said the road was under a couple of feet of water. Elsewhere, the water was almost up to the centerline on Route 2 near the boat ramp, and fire officials were alerted about 9:30 p.m. that the French Settlement Road was under water as well.

“This is probably the worst flooding we’ve seen in the last five or six years, at least,” Matson said.

Friday was a day of watchful waiting for those caught on the narrow strip of dry land along Route 2 in Milford between the floodwaters of the Penobscot River and Sunkhaze Stream. Local resident Alfred Ouellette’s back yard was transformed by the Sunkhaze Stream into a large lake.

“If worse comes to worst, we’ve got a big boat moored by the road,” Ouellette, 74, said early Friday afternoon. “When they said April showers mean May flowers, they meant it, by God,” he said.

Across Route 2, two red canoes waited for Nelson Ouellette, Alfred’s brother, to return from his expedition to the store for provisions. Nelson Ouellette needed the canoes to paddle to his home built on stilts near the Penobscot River. The river waters had surrounded the home, but it was still dry inside, Alfred Ouelette said.

Just down the road, the flooded Sunkhaze Stream caused the Greenfield Road to be shut down. Caution barriers floated over the pavement as onlookers drove up to snap photographs and watch a few drivers attempt to cross the road.

Paul St. Onge of Greenbush plowed through the flooded road in his red Chevrolet Blazer, in muddy water as high as his headlights. His wife, Mandy St. Onge, could be heard shrieking as the vehicle churned through the flood.

“The muffler was under,” Mandy St. Onge said after the couple had safely made it to the other side. “I’m … shaking.”

At high tide in Bangor midafternoon Friday, the swirling Kenduskeag Stream didn’t breach its concrete banks – but missed by only a few feet.

In Old Town, the Penobscot River extended its reach into the parking lot behind several North Main Street offices, including that of the Old Town Marine Museum and the Maine River Junction General Store.

A few inches of water had made it to the parking lot by early evening, tempting some motorists to drive through it to see how deep it was or how high a spray they could make. Water also flooded part of the College Avenue extension.

In Millinocket, one of the areas hit hardest by flooding, town and state officials anxiously watched water gradually recede and were working to avoid a trickle-down effect that would devastate other areas, said Tom Robertson, director of the Penobscot County Emergency Management Agency.

“We had a little bit of a break today, but the problem is that it takes eight to 12 hours for water in the woods to manifest itself by running into the waterways – and it will run into the waterways,” Robertson said. “Of course, the problem down here [in Bangor] is that, with anything below East Millinocket, Millinocket and Medway, the water being released from the dams is having an impact.”

Workers were using dams to try to limit flow from Twin and Millinocket lakes to prevent flooding in southern tributaries, Robertson said.

In Millinocket, about 250 residents on Morgan Lane and near Kelly’s Trailer Park were still relying Friday on a school bus lent to the town by Braydon Bus Service for transportation to and from their homes.

But the heavy flooding of a railroad overpass near the badly overflowing Little Smith Brook on Bates Street near Station Road had receded a few feet, said Kevin Davis, deputy public works department director.

Flooding on Katahdin Avenue Extension had receded Friday, but one evacuated family is still homeless, Davis said.

Police officers and public works employees continued to monitor the closed Rice Farm Road near Dead Man’s Curve because of extreme flooding, and officials remained worried that Millinocket Stream soon would overflow its banks.

Heavy flooding also closed portions of Grindstone Road between Medway and Sherman, East Millinocket Assistant Fire Chief John Minor said.

Farther south, flooding had yet to overcome the Penobscot River in Howland, where heavy currents had torn loose a dock Wednesday that remains missing.

Other than a few washed out roads, Piscataquis County escaped major damage from flooding from the excess rainfall that fell over the region Thursday and Friday.

BDN reporters Nick Sambides Jr., Diana Bowley Doug Kesseli, and Abigail Curtis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.