State employees and municipal public works departments were out in force Thursday clearing debris and repairing roadways, but it could take weeks of effort – and millions of dollars – to restore all the infrastructure damaged by Monday’s unusually destructive storm.

Forty-one state roadways and 18 bridges remained closed as of 3 p.m. Thursday, Maine Department of Transportation spokesperson Paul Merrill said. That’s down from about 100 road closures earlier in the week, but still far above the level of disruption even large storms typically bring to Maine. It’s rare to see more than 10 state road closures at once, Merrill said, adding that Monday’s storm was the most disruptive he’s seen in his five years with the department.

The storm landed a potent one-two punch on Maine’s infrastructure. Strong wind gusts tore down power lines, uprooted trees, and prevented line crews from quickly restoring power to many parts of the state. And the heavy rains Monday combined with melting snow to send rivers over their banks and spilling onto roads and streets across inland Maine Tuesday, further hampering the recovering process.

Though it’s been all hands on deck at the Department of Transportation, which has deployed close to 1,000 workers around the state to clear debris, assess damage, and conduct repairs to state-owned roads and bridges, Merrill said crews may still have several long days ahead of them.

“We’re trying to avoid having people work through the holiday,” he said. “But certainly if the job’s not done they will be.”

UNCERTAIN PRICE TAG

The storm shut down so many roads that some areas ran out of signs to mark the closures, Transportation Commissioner Bruce Van Note said at a news conference Wednesday. Especially in hard-hit Kennebec, Oxford and Franklin counties, the breadth of the storm’s impact has made it difficult to assess how difficult and expensive it will be to fix damaged infrastructure.

Merrill said Thursday that the department won’t have an accurate estimate on the cost of the damage to state roads and bridges until at least the middle of next week, but he was certain the total would be multiple millions of dollars.

In Augusta, downed trees and power lines closed four major roads on Monday, before flooding on Tuesday forced additional closures, said Lesley Jones, the city’s public works director. But while her team continues to work hard clearing debris and washing away the silt and sand left by the flooding, she said it looks like the city’s roadways fared well and won’t need many repairs.

Cities will likely be on the hook for the cost of mending municipal roads, while a mix of federal and state funds will pay for repairs to state roads, Merrill said. He said it was too soon to know what percentage of the damage will be covered by the federal government.

Merrill said it was fortunate that no state-owned bridges washed away. While some were damaged, many of the roughly three dozen bridge closures during the storm’s peak were precautionary due to high water levels, he said. Approach roads to bridges appear to have fared worse, but Merrill said fixing those will be far less costly than replacing a bridge.

While asphalt plants usually shut down for the winter around Thanksgiving, he said some plants are preparing to reopen to help with the effort.

In the short term, Department of Transportation crews are evaluating impacted roadways – what can safely open, what needs immediate repairs, what can open on a limited basis so that people can travel for Christmas – and putting together “back-of-the-envelope” cost estimates, Merrill said.

“People don’t realize the cost of a quote-unquote ‘small’ bridge is likely millions of dollars,” he said. “People don’t really think about infrastructure until it breaks.”

A STORMY FUTURE

Monday’s washout was just part of a larger trend of bigger, wetter storms that are hitting the Northeast more frequently as global temperature rises. According to the recently published National Climate Assessment, the region saw the number of “5-inch” rain days increase by 102% from 1958 to 2022.

“I think what we’re seeing now is the new norm,” Peter Rogers, director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said Wednesday. “The days of single-event storms where we have a snow or rainstorm, I think we’re going to see multi-hazard events unfortunately. And we’re seeing them quicker, so we’re dealing with instead of just one piece, it’s snow, wind, heavy rain, coastal erosion, all at the same time.”

The Department of Transportation has been working for several years to prepare for climate change’s impact on the state’s infrastructure, said Joyce Taylor, the department’s chief engineer. The agency has recently pushed for larger bridges, which are less susceptible to erosion and other damage when water levels rise, and is considering projects to build some coastal roads higher to combat the risk of flooding.

Taylor said her team is currently completing a vulnerability assessment intending to highlight ways in which Maine’s infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle the storms of the future. It also is partnering with the University of Maine’s Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center, which uses new technologies and materials to invent better, longer-lasting infrastructure, like a 3D-printed culvert diffuser designed to improve floodwater dispersal.

The upfront cost of building roads, bridges and other structures built to withstand extreme weather can be expensive, Taylor said. But failing to account for climate change could bear its own heavy cost – in dollars and lives.

“Utility companies can’t get in if the road is underwater. (Emergency medical services) can’t get in,” she said. “It’s a public safety issue in my mind.”

Staff Writer Eric Russell contributed to this report.

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