A rainstorm on Sunday, March 10, brought additional coastal flooding to Harpswell, further damaging already battered infrastructure, including the causeway at Potts Point, local officials said.
Three-fourths of the town’s roughly 4,800 Central Maine Power customers lost power temporarily. CMP’s outage list showed 3,600 Harpswell customers were without power as of 10 a.m. Sunday, with 1,900 customers still experiencing outages as of 5 p.m. All power was restored by Monday morning, according to CMP.
“The worst damage from (Sunday’s) storm was to the Potts Point causeway,” Michael Drake, Harpswell’s fire and emergency management administrator, said Monday via email. “The road is becoming undermined, (along with) severe damage to the guardrail on the east side and lots of ocean debris.”
Drake said Harpswell’s three volunteer fire departments responded to a total of seven calls Sunday related to downed power lines or trees, as well as two medical calls.
“There was little additional damage to town infrastructure, including additional undermining of Ocean Street and the Giant’s Stairs trail, and minor damage to the Garrison Cove boat landing,” he said.
According to the National Weather Service, Sunday’s storm brought wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour to coastal Maine and dropped about 1.7 inches of rain on Harpswell.
It followed earlier coastal storms on Jan. 10 and 13 that caused an estimated $220,000 of damage to Harpswell’s public infrastructure, including total destruction of the town dock at Potts Point, at the southern tip of Harpswell Neck. The estimate did not include private property damage. A previous storm on Dec. 18 caused severe inland flooding in parts of Maine but didn’t significantly damage Harpswell.
Drake said the Maine Department of Transportation was at Potts Point early Monday, clearing debris to make the state-owned road passable.
Department spokesperson Paul Merrill said via email that Sunday’s storm impacted eight state roads overall, far fewer than the number impacted by the storms in January and December.
“The causeway … is passable, but there was damage to the adjacent slope,” Merrill said about Potts Point. “MaineDOT crews will work to repair that damage. I don’t have a timeline on that yet.”
He added that crews have been working hard statewide to repair damaged roads to maintain a safe and reliable transportation system.
Have a comment or news tip? Email J. Craig Anderson at craig@harpswellanchor.org.
