Your donation, in any amount, can help sustain the BDN’s civic news mission. Learn more about why we are asking for reader support.
The storm that left many Maine households without electricity Tuesday also rocked some of the state’s major ski areas just as they were bracing for a rush of travelers during the busy holiday break.
Multiple mountains announced that they were suspending operations for several days as they assessed the damage, including Sugarloaf, which expects to reopen on Thursday, and Saddleback, which says it’ll resume ski and snowboard service on Saturday.
The most seriously hit of that group may be Sunday River in Newry, where rain combined with snowmelt to do serious damage to the surrounding area. The mountain said it would be closed through at least Wednesday, but had not offered a potential reopening date as of late Tuesday afternoon.
Multiple roads were damaged around Sunday River, including an access road to the Grand Summit Hotel that was washed out during the storm and had to undergo an emergency repair Tuesday afternoon — leaving guests stranded there for more than a day.
The Androscoggin River also crested way over its banks, swamping an electric station in nearby Bethel, flooding some local businesses, and blocking all of the main roads into the area. By Tuesday evening, the flooding hadn’t fully receded along those roads, and it still was not clear when they would reopen.
At least two popular restaurants in downtown Bethel, Butcher Burger and its neighbor Kowloon Village, were both inundated when the river rose up. By 12:30 p.m., it had receded enough that David Turner, the general manager of Butcher Burger who had driven to Bethel along back roads Tuesday morning, was able to enter the business and assess the damage.
There were still roughly two inches of water on the floor. Everything was wet, and the dining, bar and kitchen areas were in disarray — including a set of booths that had just been installed recently. Outside, a picnic table had been carried more than a hundred feet away by the flood waters, and a metal dumpster was missing.
“This is devastation,” Turner said.
Turner said that the insurance company was coming to assess the damage and that he hoped the business would be able to open again in Bethel. He noted it was a particular setback given that the week between Christmas and New Years typically brings many visitors to town.
“We didn’t know it was going to be like this,” Turner said, referring to the level of flooding.
More than 200,000 Maine households were still without power as of late Tuesday afternoon, including nearly 2,000 in Bethel.
Power had been restored to many residents of Newry by Tuesday evening, but there were other forms of damage there — especially to local roads that were destabilized by the heavy rainfall and snowmelt.
In the midst of the storm on Monday afternoon, Leo Menard and his girlfriend were driving up the main Sunday River access road to their place in Newry, hugging the center of the road. But at one point, the right side of the road buckled underneath them, causing Menard’s white Dodge truck to get stuck at a downward angle.
They weren’t harmed, other than having a difficult time getting out of the truck. But because of all the road closures, Menard was still waiting to get a tow truck a day later. He was directing traffic around his vehicle in the meantime, at one point accepting a bottle of water from a passing driver.
“I’m trying to make sure the other drivers get around safely, and also don’t hit my truck,” he said. Menard added that the damage from this storm was “way worse” than he’s ever seen in Maine,.
Further up the access road on Tuesday afternoon, a small army of construction workers were working to build a temporary bridge at the damaged access road to the Grand Summit Hotel. The road was washed out on Monday, as heavy rainfall dislodged the culverts underneath it.
Multiple people who appeared to be hotel guests were on the other side of the road, watching the repairs.
Scott Everett, the owner of Everett Excavators in West Paris, said the temporary bridge would likely be done overnight, and that there was additional damage on the mountain that his company was helping to repair.
A Sunday River spokesperson, Ellen Wainwright, declined to share many details about the extent of the damage, saying it’s still being assessed. But Wainwright confirmed that vehicle access had been cut off to the hotel.
The resort still had “direct contact and access” to the hotel with other snow vehicles, and the guests and staff “are all safe, warm and well fed,” Wainwright said in a statement. The hotel never lost power in the storm.
One of the stranded guests, Ash Pajoohi, of the Hudson Valley of New York, had come to the hotel on Sunday with his daughter Arabella, who was planning to participate in a ski racing camp this week.
Pajoohi said the hotel has been updating guests about the road closure by text message and that he’s been impressed by the service. There is a heated pool that’s still open, and the hotel prepared activities for children to do on Tuesday.
While Pajoohi’s original plan was to stay until Thursday, that could change now that skiing is off the table. “If we can leave tomorrow, we’ll be leaving tomorrow,” he said.