Penobscot County is taking a drastic step to help a family whose house has been slowly falling into the Penobscot River for months.
On June 4, 2024, the backyard of a home in Argyle where Aaron and Elaine St. Louis lived suddenly slid into the Penobscot River. Since then, the river has slowly eaten away at the unstable land behind their house, threatening to take the structure with it.
To save the property and help the family, Penobscot County applied for a $280,000 hazard mitigation grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency in mid-December, according to George Buswell, director of the unorganized territories in Penobscot County.
If awarded, the grant will allow the county to purchase the home from the St. Louis family, demolish it and stabilize the land to stop the erosion, Buswell said.
Aside from preventing the house from descending into the Penobscot River, Buswell said the grant is the homeowners’ last hope of getting any money for their property so they can start fresh. This is because the family’s home insurance won’t cover the cost of the landslide and the home isn’t listed in a floodzone, which prevents them from receiving flood insurance.
Though a county stepping in to help an individual when disaster strikes isn’t common, it isn’t unheard of, Buswell said. The last time Buswell remembered the county doing something similar was in the late 2000s when a family in Grindstone lost their home to flooding.
Argyle is one of the 40 unorganized territories in Penobscot County, which means county leadership acts as the local municipal office and provides essential services for the community. FEMA also requires the county to sponsor the grant application, according to Scott Adkins, Penobscot County administrator.
Though the county still isn’t certain whether the St. Louis’ situation qualifies for the grant, Buswell said he hopes to receive an answer in the next 90 days.
The homeowners will pay 10 percent of the total project cost.
“It’s eroding more and more every day because otherwise, there’s no money to stop the house from falling into the river,” Buswell said. “This is our last hope to clean up the site and keep the house from falling into the river.”
After that, the county would maintain ownership of the site and use it as a green space permanently, Adkins said.
The homeowners were forced to evacuate their home following the landslide and are now living with family.
“They’re without any help,” Buswell said. “These are great people and they did nothing wrong.”
A GoFundMe online fundraiser aimed at helping the St. Louis family rebuild their home had raised nearly $18,000 as of Friday. The campaign launched in June 2024 and has a $250,000 goal.
The St. Louis family did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The landslide happened, Buswell said, because the home was built on Presumpscot Formation, a type of land that contains a soft layer of mud. The river ate away at the mud over time, causing the ground to eventually give way, he said.
“When it went, it went all at once,” Buswell said. “They were home one night eating dinner and they looked out the window and saw trees going by.”
The same kind of mud formation has caused landslides in river valley and coastal towns in southern Maine for hundreds of years, the Portland Press Herald reported. Those events have destroyed or condemned at least five homes since 1983 in Rockland, Brunswick, Waterville and Gorham.
Sybille Norris, who has lived next to the St. Louis’ home for three years, said some of her backyard previously slid into the Penobscot River, but she didn’t know what year it happened.
Regardless of the risk of her property facing the same fate as her neighbors’ home, Norris said she isn’t concerned.
“Am I afraid it’s going to happen to me? No,” Norris said.
