Bomb cyclone, Nor’Easter, blizzard, whatever you called it, the Jan. 4 storm certainly had an impact on the Midcoast.
Harpswell, Brunswick, Bath, Phippsburg, Arrowsic, Georgetown, Boothbay Harbor, Damariscotta – if it was near tidal water, it likely got flooded by the astronomical high tide (also known as a “King Tide”) at about 1 p.m.
Despite dramatic photos and videos, the damage ended up being somewhat minimal.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been. We’re still trying to fine tune who saw it and get the reports straight,” said Sarah Bennett, director of Sagadahoc County Emergency Management Agency. “I haven’t heard of any true damages yet.”
In Sagadahoc County, the peninsulas unsurprisingly got hit the hardest. The road leading to Fort Popham in Phippsburg was effectively part of the ocean for a period of time, as was Route 127 in Arrowsic.
Route 127 in Arrowsic was temporarily underwater thanks to a King Tide combined with storm surge.
Up in Damariscotta, the story was similar. The high tide, coupled with a storm surge, led to flooding in the town’s municipal parking lot.
“It was higher than I ever saw it before. We believe that it approached the storm of record in February 1978,” said Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus. “The water came up well over our park.”
Some water made it into the Damariscotta River Grill. Other businesses, like Renys, managed to make it out unscathed.
Parts of Damariscotta’s municipal parking lot and surrounding alleyways were flooded due to Thursday’s high water.
Down in Harpswell, the high water had waves lapping at the edges of some buildings. Mary Coombs, a manager for Cook’s Lobster and Ale House, took a video of the storm from the dining area.
“I decided to open the window and stick my phone out and take the video,” she said.
It ended up going viral, and is currently sitting at over 210,000 views and has been shared over 4,400 times. You can see the video on the Coastal Journal Facebook page.
“It was actually kind of funny because I just took it to show my boss how high the tide was,” said Coombs. “They said, ‘you really should put that on our Facebook page, so I did.”
The wharf next door took the brunt of the storm, but according to Coombs came out relatively unscathed. The restaurant itself didn’t have any water get inside.
The only real loss, she said, was the lobster trap tree they had put up for the holidays.
“It shorted the lights out,” said Coombs. “It was all through the parking lot, that’s how deep the water was.”
Despite the record-high water and heavy snow, there were no dispatches related to the storm, according to Bennett.
“We didn’t have any reports of people stranded,” she said. “I haven’t received any calls from dispatch that anyone has any needs.”
She said that advanced warning, coupled with most people being used to winter weather, likely helped.
“People who live on the coast are prepared for this, they know that it comes, and it’s not their first rodeo,” said Bennett. “Mainers did the Mainer thing.”
The Coastal Journal was also witness to some flooding, as evidenced by this photo of the nearby Kennebec Tavern. This photo has already been shared over 140 times on our Facebook.
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