LIMESTONE – Marked by a tragic start, the Phish wave started rolling in Wednesday as fans of the jam band began to appear in Aroostook County.

Police and local business owners expect schools of Phish fans, up to 60,000 of them, to start arriving today at the Loring Commerce Centre, site of the three-day concert. The site opens at 8 a.m. Friday, with the event lasting until late Sunday night.

After the death of one of the concert organizers early Tuesday morning, tragedy again struck the big project Tuesday night.

A worker with Great Northeast Productions Inc., producers of the “It” weekend concert, was seriously injured after falling from a tower at the site.

On Sunday, concert organizer James Willox, 43, of Dedham, Mass., was killed when his car went off a road in the early morning hours as he returned to a Caribou motel.

Douglas Born, 42, of Auburn, a union stagehand, fell off the second-floor roof of the control tower, next to the Loring flight line, just before 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Born was taken by Loring Ambulance to the Cary Medical Center in Caribou. He then was airlifted to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor during the night, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Wednesday afternoon.

Born had extensive internal injuries, McCausland said. The stagehand was in serious condition, Tammy Howes, an EMMC spokesperson, said Wednesday afternoon.

Born, a union member of IATSE Local 114, was working on the second-floor roof of some staging when he stepped off the side of the roof and fell 35 feet to the ground. Another worker saw the accident and reported the incident at 9:42 p.m., McCausland said.

The incident is being investigated by the Limestone Police Department and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An OSHA investigator arrived at scene Wednesday afternoon, McCausland said.

It is the third time that the band Phish, known to have passionate followers, has performed at the Loring venue. Other concerts were held in 1997 and 1998, bringing thousands of fans who for three days transformed the site into a major community in Maine.

Brian Hamel, president of the Loring Development Authority, which oversees the commerce center, said workers have been on site for weeks. He said he expected that 1,000 people will be working for the producers of the concert by the time it is done.

“It’s a huge project logistically,” he said Wednesday.

“It will be a venue fans will enjoy,” he said. “There has been a lot of activity locally for goods and services.”

Police officials around Aroostook County said they started noticing concert-goers arriving Wednesday morning.

Remembering the six deaths that occurred after the first two concerts, police are concerned about tired drivers and that people will leave the base while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Officers will be out in full force, with extra manpower, throughout the coming weekend and extending into Tuesday next week, Lt. Darrell Ouellette, commanding officer of the Maine State Police barracks at Houlton, said Wednesday afternoon.

“Their numbers double the population of Aroostook County,” Ouellette said about the fans. “We are putting in extra people, plus 30 troopers from downstate.

“We are assisted by local law enforcement who will also have increased manpower,” he said. “We will be ready to respond to any crisis.”

Extra patrols will work the interstate as well as Routes 1, 11, 89, and 163, and extra personnel will be on site.

Personnel will include hazardous-materials experts, tactical teams, canine patrols, Maine Drug Enforcement Agency personnel, undercover police officers, National Guard personnel and staff for crowd control.

“We will enforce criminal laws, including drug laws, on and off the concert site,” Ouellette said. “We are expecting extra drugs, and we will have people on the premises.”

Ouellette said concert-goers have been warned ahead of time, even on the Phish Web site, that vehicles will be searched. The advance notice, Ouellette said, gives them the opportunity to change their minds.

Concert-goers will be allowed onto the site on Friday morning. State police hope to have the site cleared of people by 4 p.m. Monday.

Meanwhile, area businesses, depending on where they are located – and too close to the Loring Commerce Centre is not necessarily a good thing – are expecting either a big volume of business or very little.

Wayne Langley, owner of the Rendezvous Restaurant on the East Gate Road at Limestone, said he wasn’t expecting much increased business even though his restaurant is located on the road into the concert venue.

“After they have driven 1,500 miles to get here, they won’t stop at a restaurant a quarter of a mile from the site,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “Once they are inside, they stay there because everything they need is there.

“They drive right by me wanting to get there, knowing they are so close,” he said. “It was like that the first two times they had the concert here.”

Langley said they get some business from the workers at the site, but even then, there seems to be some kind of cafeteria there furnishing workers with meals.

At the other end of The County, where concert-bound travelers exit Interstate 95 to head north on U.S. Route 1, Phish fans are the greatest thing.

Debbie Heath, bookkeeper at Irving’s Travelers Big Stop at Houlton, loves the concert-goers.

“Yes, we are expecting big business,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “They’ve already started coming in.

“We’ve put on extra people, and ordered more food and all kinds of stuff,” she said.

“They are an awful lot of pretty decent people,” said Wendy Folsom, a cashier at the same business. “I’ve worked here during the first two concerts, and they are about the nicest bunch of people I have ever worked with.

“We really get hit hard,” she said. “We’ve already started getting them, and I figure they will come in real hard Thursday afternoon.”

She said some of the Phish fans who have gone through said they passed tour buses full of people on their way to the concert. Folsom expects business will be very heavy today and Friday, and again Monday and Tuesday.

Concert-goers buy all kinds of things, from ice cream to soda, sandwiches, luncheon meat, bread, cigarettes and all kinds of water, she said. She heard in 1998 they even bought lawn chairs and other chairs from other local businesses.

“It’s really great for business,” Folsom said.