Fort Kent pulls together to meet vast recovery needs

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FORT KENT – After making it through the snowiest winter on record, residents of this northern Maine town were not about to let a little water keep them from business as usual.

They just had to get a bit creative and move to higher ground.

By midday Thursday, 4 feet of water was in the basement level of Thibodeau’s Insurance Agency’s East Main Street building which normally looks out over the Fish River but by then was surrounded by it.

“The officials made us move out,” agent Debbie Madore said.

So on Thursday they set up shop at employee Francis Labrie’s home on Upper Pleasant Street.

“My house is convenient, big enough and high on a hill,” Labrie said. “People can get here from all parts of town and it’s handy.” And her co-workers are sharing her two phone lines.

“We’re working hard to make this work,” she said. “It’s a bit of a challenge setting up the computers, but people can come here to see insurance adjusters or to pay bills.”

In anticipation of flood-related claims, Labrie said, company agents have already begun contacting customers holding insurance policies.

“We are trying to be proactive so the adjusters can get out there and get things started,” Labrie said.

Madore said, “There could be some damage, but we can’t go back and see until maybe on Monday.”

Thibodeau’s wasn’t the only business hit by the flood.

The Fort Kent post office closed for two days. Mail came in, but nothing went out until Friday.

Postmaster Rudy St. Pierre said employees were ordered to evacuate the building and made appearances Wednesday and Thursday only to unload the mail trucks.

“That’s all we were allowed to do,” he said.

“All the first-class and priority mail will be delivered today,” he said Friday. “As far as I’m concerned, we are all caught up.”

More than mail was having a tough time getting out of town.

With several major roads in and out of Fort Kent closed by the flooding, residents found themselves cut off from access to food, staples and medication.

Pharmacist Charles Ouellette, owner of St. John Valley Pharmacy in Fort Kent, worked phones to arrange emergency deliveries.

“When we started getting calls from people who could not get their needed medication in St. Francis, we called the Police Department and they got us in contact with Jim Thibodeau at the St. Francis Fire Department,” Ouellette said.

Thibodeau, in turn, contacted Gary Gardner, who works on the ambulance service, and arranged for the medications to be flown by helicopter for delivery to a half-dozen residents in need.

Ouellette also has been working to help people who lost medical records and insurance information in the flood.

“All I did was make a few phone calls,” Ouellette said. “It got things straightened out for them.”

This is the first time in anyone’s memory the Fish River has flowed across East Main Street to join up with the St. John River.

The impressive act of nature was the chief topic of conversation at Voisine’s Store on Market Street, where owner Gary Voisine kept his coffee pot full for his customers.

“They all want me to set up a grill outside and sell hot dogs,” Voisine said. “The flood is all anyone is talking about, [and] every hour there’s a different crowd in here.”

Up to a dozen men at any given time were hanging around the store debating the amount of snow left in the North Woods, just how much rain could still come, and what could happen once the ice from the lakes lets go.

“I’m a little older than the rest of these guys, and I can say I’ve never seen the river like this,” one customer said.

Many residents who suddenly had the Fish River in or uncomfortably close to their homes also have private wells, which have been declared off-limits until further notice.

Locally, Paradis’ Shop ‘n Save has stepped up to help out with truckloads of donated bottled water, available free for whoever needs it.

“We had eight kids here last night unloading all this water by hand,” said Dennis Paradis of the family-owned store. “They just showed up out of nowhere to help.”

By midday Friday a steady line of cars was pulling into the store’s parking lot to load up on the water.

Among those lending a hand were brothers Connor and Boo Prescott, two of Fort Kent’s newest residents.

“We’re new here and thought this would be a perfect way to meet people,” Boo, 11, said as he loaded gallon jugs of water into a waiting car.

Connor, 15, agreed. “We wanted to help out.”

The boys and their family recently moved to Fort Kent from Ellsworth.

“This was our welcome present to Fort Kent,” their mother, Colleen Prescott, said with a laugh as she looked at the flooded section of town. “To see the way this town came together and stayed calm told us we’d made the right choice in coming here.”

After Prescott had come to the Paradis parking lot to get some water for a friend, she encouraged her sons to lend a hand.

“We are high and dry at our house, and I suggested the boys come and help,” Prescott said.

“It was more like, ‘Get out of bed, you’re going to work,'” Connor said with a grin.

Along with the Prescott boys, employees of the grocery store were released from their regular duties to load water into cars.

“This is a town that sticks together,” Paradis said. “Look at what the guys from the town garage and [the Department of Transportation] did. They saved this town,” he added in reference to the hastily constructed earthen berm that prevented the Fish River from spilling onto West Main Street.

Prescott had visited Fort Kent earlier this winter and said she is looking forward to seeing the area when things clear up.

“We’ve only ever seen the town covered with snow or under water,” she said.