Sand is replaced at Scarborough Beach State Park after January’s storms pushed much of it into the parking lot. The park reopens Monday after being closed for two weeks to repair storm damages. Contributed / Greg Wilfert
Scarborough Beach State Park will reopen to the public on Monday after it was closed for two weeks to repair damages from the January storms that battered Maine’s coast.
Construction crews have replaced sand, repaired water and electrical lines, installed new fencing and rehabbed one of the parking lots.
The lower parking lot at Scarborough Beach was covered in 6 inches to a foot of sand that needed to be returned to the beach, according to Park Director Greg Wilfert. Contributed / Greg Wilfert
Water broke through the dunes during the storms and “funneled” up the long, narrow path to the lower parking lot, sweeping sand into it and causing other damages, said Park Director Greg Wilfert.
“It’s been 300 trips for the loader to put the sand back in its original place,” Wilfert told the Leader on Monday. “Halfway down the lot near the beach, we had 6 inches to a foot of sand that we’ve had to put back up, then there’s the debris that was left all through the park.”
Crews also have been hauling out fallen and damaged trees that Wilfert said could have been dangerous to beachgoers.
New fencing is another big part of the project.
“I lost 90% of my snow (and sand) fence,” he said. “It got destroyed.”
Most of the damage is confined to the entrance to the beach from the parking lot, he said, so the project hasn’t disturbed much of the beach itself.
The cost of the work likely will run to “six figures,” Wilfert said, but he does not yet have an exact amount.
While the park will reopen Monday with the upper parking lot available, the lower lot won’t be open until Memorial Day weekend. Work with heavy equipment will have been completed, but some work on the lot remains.
While much of the project is “just trying to get things back in place,” the fixes should leave the park better off than it was prior to the storms, Wilfert said.
“We’ve made a lot of headway, but we do have a ton of work still to do,” he said. “I think it’ll be better than it was before. That’s the confidence I have.”
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