SANFORD — Maine was just starting to dig out from a snow, rain and ice storm on Sunday morning when Ann Thomas stopped to check on the Goodall Memorial Library.

As she walked through the library’s temporary space in the Center for Shopping plaza, she saw bulging ceiling tiles above the adult fiction section and knew she had to act fast.

Thomas, who recently took over the role of library director, raced to move books and drape plastic over shelves with help from library employees. But the tiles burst, ruining books and soaking the carpet. Water also damaged the children’s section and has collected in some light fixtures, making the building unsafe until repairs are made.

While the library staff continued cleaning up damage from the roof leak on Monday, residents of communities along the coast were still coping with the damage caused by the thick coating of ice that knocked down tress, snapped off tree limbs and brought down power lines. With tens of thousands of coastal homes and businesses still without power Monday, some took advantage of local warming shelters to escape unheated homes and charge phones and devices.

Goodall Memorial Library in Sanford remained closed, with an “uninhabitable building” notice posted on the door by the code enforcement office. Inside, a steady drip of water pinged off plastic sheeting draped over a shelf. Pieces of ceiling tile were scattered on the floor.

Thomas estimated about $1,000 worth of books were ruined and has started a list so they can be replaced. She was told the water likely came from drains on the roof that were blocked during the storm.

Thomas does not yet know how long it will take to clean up and get permission to reopen, but hopes it won’t take too long. The library is scheduled to move back to its downtown building when renovations are done this fall.

“The hard part is a lot of people come to the library for community and social connections,” she said. “For some people, that’s the only social connection they have.”

Much of interior Maine saw mostly snow during the storm, while it mixed with rain closer to the coast. A communities right along the coast got coated with ice from freezing rain and rain that froze on contact.

Ginger Hicklin said she and her family were at Sugarloaf when they learned their house in Falmouth lost power.

The power was still out when they returned around 7 p.m. Sunday night. The family, including their two young sons, went to sleep under five large blankets and wearing beanies to keep warm.

Hicklin’s was one of several Falmouth families in a warming center set up at the Mason Motz Activity Center Monday afternoon, trying to figure out where they’ll go if the power isn’t back on Monday night. Local schools were closed Monday, and it was unclear to Hicklin – a special education technician – whether classes would resume Tuesday.

WHERE TO EAT, WHERE TO STAY?

“Our traffic lights are still not operating,” Hicklin said. She was driving around to find lunch – they had dinner at Becky’s in Portland on Sunday night. Most businesses around Falmouth are still closed.

“McDonald’s is closed,” Hicklin said. “Walmart is closed. Dunkin’ Donuts is closed. All those major businesses are closed.”

Hicklin said they’ve never had an outage go longer than six hours. She was evaluating whether her family should stay at a friend’s place tonight, but she was scared of leaving their two cats.

Francesca Kerr and her family also came home after a long journey to their cold Falmouth home. Kerr had taken her daughter to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, for a soccer game on Saturday morning. The game was canceled midway through, and in soaked game clothes, the family headed home.

The drive back was harrowing, Kerr said. The start of the drive was slushy, walls of water splashing on their car.

What should have been a five- to 10-minute drive from the I-95 West Falmouth exit to her home took an hour.

“There were so many crews out trying to clear trees from the road. We’d go down the road and there would be a tree across the road, so we’d have to turn around,” She said. “It was completely bizarre and trees were completely iced over, it was pitch black. I’d have to cross over lanes to the other side of the road because the trees would have scraped the hood of my car, they were hanging down so low covered with ice.”

When she got to her dark home after the long day, all Kerr could do was light the fireplace, pile on blankets and hope that power was restored in the morning. She went to sleep that night in a sweatshirt, sweatpants and a hat.

The power still wasn’t back when Kerr, who works from home, woke up.

“It hasn’t been insurmountable. It’s kind of unfortunate and inconvenient and frustrating to realize how much we take for granted,” she said.

Kerr’s power turned back on at 5:45 p.m. on Monday, turned back off again at 7:45 p.m., and turned on again at 8:10 p.m.

“We don’t really know what’s going on,” she said.

Falmouth Fire Chief Howard Rice, Jr., said Monday that the fire department, police and public works have been inundated since Saturday. At one point, the entire town was without power.

The police station had to direct drivers where traffic lights were out, and city workers were working nonstop at the city’s 33 wastewater pumps, which weren’t able to work properly because of the outages.

A FEW CLOSE CALLS

As many Falmouth homes turned to generators for power, Rice said the fire department received several calls for carbon monoxide poisoning – people had their generators too close to their homes.

“Luckily, no one was sick, no one was injured by it, but we had some significant levels, some close calls, where they had a carbon monoxide detector,” Rice said.

He said the fire department responded to 10 houses where they had to ventilate and check on residents. Rice advised people to set them up at least 20 feet from their houses, pointing away from any windows and doors.

In Brunswick, nearly 300 people stopped by the Brunswick Recreation Center Sunday to access the warming center, to charge their devices and to use the showers. That count didn’t include people with memberships to the recreation center, Parks and Recreation Director Thomas Farrell said.

The recreation center was open overnight for anyone who needed a warm place to be, but no one stayed. Farrell said this wasn’t unusual, based on the city’s experiences with past storms. Another 156 people spent time at the Brunswick Recreation Center on Monday.

The recreation center will likely close at 8 p.m. Monday and reopen Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. for anyone who still needs the warming center.

“It was pretty interesting to watch the sense of community that was unfolding,” Farrell said. “Everybody had a common story in terms of what they were dealing with at their residences, and there was a real sense of community in the building.”

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