The roads are wonderfully quiet with winter traffic now. Some days I can walk to the post office and back, at noon, without having a single vehicle drive by. Often, when I get there, I notice the BIGS parking lot is full of pickups and I wonder if maybe there’s a back way to the store I don’t know about.
As I write this, we’re getting on with the business of getting on. The storms of this winter that did so much to change the shoreline are going to live in our memories just as the ’78 storm still does.
A lot has been said about the property damage along the coast and, of course, in Harpswell. Immediately after the January storms, there was much concern about how some of the visual icons fared. Well-known wharves and popular shoreline businesses got drive-bys before the winds died so folks could scoop their “friends” with photos and videos taken with their phones and posted on social media.
For us old folks who prefer to remain near the coffee pot rather than to venture out in the storm, the posts were a welcome incentive to stay put. It seemed that the scene of the accident was everywhere one looked along the shore. Fortunately for all, the predicted winds failed to show up with the tide and storm surge.
By the looks of the bucket trucks, equipment haulers, and construction company box trucks in the neighborhoods, you’d think there are dozens of building projects underway right now. It seems to me that there are more crews occupied with repairs on shoreline residences than with docks, wharves, fish houses, etc.
One company I spoke with said that shoreline and shoreline structure repairs require local and/or state permits. I asked if obtaining the required permit to replace or repair what was lost because of these storms was a lengthy wait. I was told that the state responses to permit applications are reasonable, with some requiring no response at all after a 10-day wait. Confidentially, he said that recently the local permit application review process has gotten bogged down.
Some, and perhaps many, property owners are waiting to see what funding might be available from insurance or disaster relief before they begin to clean up or repair their properties. If they go ahead now, it may appear to an insurance company or government agency that there is no damage to fix, so no funding is needed.
You, dear reader, know me well enough by now to expect me to inject a bit of humor, sarcasm, cynicism or BS into my writing. Not on this subject, however. To the recent public attention to preserving the working waterfront, these storms have dealt a mighty blow, one from which recovery will be difficult. If the wharves, docks and fish houses are not rebuilt, as sure as I am writing this we will lose more waterfront to development and more native community members to wealthy transplants with different agendas.
I will continue to support the local marine industry that has been the backbone and identity of Harpswell alongside the vacation rental businesses. Many of our family and friends have had to seek housing in other towns as the cost of property in Harpswell has skyrocketed. Without a healthy marine industry and the infrastructure to support it, I can envision my hometown continuing to decay into an exclusive adult community for wealthy, childless, work-at-home owners and retirees with warm-climate forwarding addresses for the winter, choked by mobs of summer vacationers when it’s warm.
“Harpswell: a non-working-waterfront gated community … without the gates.”
Sounds ugly to me.
Support our fishermen and the local marine industry, folks, and help them rebuild. Your town depends on it.
Butch Lawson is an observer of life. He lives on Bailey Island.
