FORT KENT – As bad as things are along East Main Street, it could be a lot worse.

When the Fish River flowed over its banks and joined with the St. John River down Church, Martin and St. John streets, it covered some roads, playground equipment and the basketball court at Riverside Park.

Twenty-five years ago, it would have been a very different scenario.

That’s because before there was a park alongside the river, there was a thriving residential neighborhood where close to 50 households raised families that every spring kept a close eye on the St. John River.

“I dreaded April every year,” Laura Corriveau said. “If I were still down there now, I’d have 6 feet of water in the house.”

For more than 40 years, Corriveau lived on Church Street and spent more than a few springs cleaning St. John River silt and detritus out of her house, but the lifelong Fort Kent resident said she has never seen anything like this year.

“I’m very happy not to be down there,” she said from her hillside Fort Kent home – the same home that once stood near the river.

In 1982, the town of Fort Kent successfully applied for an $800,000 Community Development Block Grant aimed at physically relocating both the homes and residents of the flood plain.

“That money allowed us to get those homes out of there,” Alain Ouellette, Fort Kent’s community development officer in 1983, said Thursday. “It really prevented catastrophic losses.”

Today Ouellette is with the Northern Maine Development Commission, but it does not take much to rekindle the enthusiasm he had 25 years ago for the nationally recognized relocation project.

“We took steps in applying that funding in creative ways,” he said. “The residents of East Main Street really made it possible along with the farsightedness of good local leadership.”

At the time, the 47 households along the flood plain were given three options:

. Sell the homes for fair market value and move out.

. Sell the homes for fair market value, buy back the home for a token $1 price and physically relocate the home.

. Do nothing at all.

“About 20 people actually moved their houses,” Ouellette said, “including one that was two stories tall with a stone fireplace and chimney.”

Among those homes was the Corriveau house.

“It was unbelievable to see,” said Lena Corriveau, Laura Corriveau’s daughter. “I never would have believed you could take a 150-ton house and slide it on steal beams and move it up the road.”

Lena Corriveau grew up on Church Street and, while thankful that she and her parents are not dealing with this week’s flooding, she is a bit nostalgic.

“We had to leave our neighborhood,” she said. “It was a really close group and we were all really tight.”

For years before moving, Lena and her parents faced spring knowing that within a matter of hours water levels could change and they would be moving possessions from the cellar and first floor to higher ground.

“The house would get surrounded by water and we’d be going in and out by canoe,” Lena Corriveau said. “We got pretty good at moving stuff up and getting ready for a flood.”

Moving the homestead ended all that – until this year.

“We live at the base of a hill, and this year the ground is so wet we have water seeping in the basement,” Lena Corriveau said. “But, as I’m vacuuming it up with the Shop-Vac, I keep telling myself it’s just an inch.”

Not everyone left the flood plain.

Homes along East Main Street were not eligible for the program. Until this year, that didn’t seem to matter.

Like Corriveau, Sue Roy grew up dealing with potential flooding every spring. This year, as the water crept ever closer to her doorstep facing East Main Street, she and her husband, James Ouellette, decided to ride it out.

“I’ve never seen it like this before,” Roy said Thursday afternoon. “I remember as a little kid looking down the cellar steps and seeing water in the basement, [but] this is a record breaker.”

For years, Roy and Ouellette watched the St. John River as it rose behind the house, but this spring the water came at them from the Fish River, which is normally across the street from their house.

As of Wednesday, the Fish River was all around them.

“We’re on an island,” Ouellette said. “I disconnected the main [electric] breaker and left one circuit on. We have television [and] can brew coffee, we have the stove for heat and we put snow in the refrigerator to keep things cool.”

Ouellette also disconnected the furnace and took the motor out before water filled the basement to within a couple of feet of the first floor.

He used cables to secure his firewood to the side of the building and tied his boat to the house.

“That pretty much stopped things from drifting away,” he said. “But we are getting a big collection of other people’s stuff in our yard.”

Ouellette said the water was receding slowly Thursday afternoon.

“We had no major loss,” he said. “But my doghouse did float to the neighbor’s yard.”

Normally, once the snow has gone, Ouellette and Roy plant flowers and greenery to attract a variety of birds. This year they had a little extra help.

“I looked out the window yesterday and a drake and female mallard duck were floating right past,” Roy said.

Today all that’s left of the old neighborhood are patches of concrete where homes once stood. Playground equipment and walking paths have taken the place of driveways and garages.

“Leaving that neighborhood and all those people really hurt [but] we knew it was for a higher purpose and one day we would not regret it,” Lena Corriveau said. “Today’s that day.”