Sunday, April 29, 2007
After the Mother's Day floods last year, the town of York didn't simply rebuild a couple of washed-out roads. Crews installed larger, natural-bottom culverts designed to better handle future storms.
That decision paid off sooner than expected when this year's Patriot's Day nor'easter flooded York county for the second time in 11 months. Those culverts and roads survived while many others did not.
How state and local agencies spend more than $40 million to rebuild from the latest storm could make a big difference in the amount of damage Maine will endure next time around. Bigger and better culverts is one simple response. Preventing future damage from coastal erosion in places like Saco's Ferry Beach, where the surf claimed two more homes, is a much trickier challenge.
"Everyone wants to do it so you fix it once and you don't touch it again for 100 years," said Barry Tibbetts, town manager in Kennebunk.
The town of Kennebunk knows how difficult that can be, however. Last week's storm pounded apart a sea wall that was reinforced last year and swamped a neighborhood near the Mousam River that also was under water just last year.
NOT AGAIN -- BETTER
Much of the rebuilding going on now is focused on culverts that allow streams to flow beneath roads. Floodwaters surging over and around culverts scoured away road shoulders, roadbeds and pavement across southern Maine.
"We have quite a few" washed- out roads, said Mike Burns, director of maintenance and operations for the Maine Department of Transportation.
In major washouts, the department studies the hydrology of an area to figure out the right size of a new culvert. Usually, the damage itself is proof the old culvert was too small. "We would most often put in a slightly larger pipe," he said.
Some see the rebuilding as an opportunity for improvement.
The State Planning Office is encouraging communities to replace washed-out steel pipe culverts with larger passageways made of concrete and with a natural stone or gravel bottom. Along with getting washed out more easily, the standard steel culverts have blocked fish, as well as amphibians and mammals, from moving up and down streams, officials said.
"Fish in general don't like to go through tunnels; they're kind of like people that way," said Jon Kachmar, habitat restoration coordinator for the Maine Coastal Program, part of the planning office. "They like it to be like the rest of the stream."
The wildlife-friendly culverts also are better for protecting roads, Kachmar said. The town of York made the upgrade from steel culverts to bottomless concrete ones beneath two roads that washed out last May -- Logging Road and Clay Hill Road.
"Both locations had blown out previously in 1996. It was time to fix both of these the right way," said public works director Bill Bray. "They came through (this month's nor'easter) with shining colors."
The pair of new culverts cost about $900,000, while simple replacements would have cost less than $600,000, Bray said.
But the improvements had the support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which paid for most of the cost. The agency routinely pays for upgrades during rebuilding projects, in addition to providing grants before and after disasters, officials said.
"They're very receptive to doing it the right way," Bray said. "It saves everybody money and, quite honestly, it saves an awful lot of destruction, too."
'RARE EVENT' RECURS
While FEMA inspectors support reconstruction projects with an eye toward future storms, they don't want communities to overreact and overbuild for what may truly be rare weather events, according to local and state officials.
"It's also important to remember there are some events that are so severe they can cause damage to the best-designed or best-built roads and culverts," said Lynette Miller of the Maine Emergency Management Agency.
Federal money isn't exactly thrown around.
The residents of the Intervale Road neighborhood in Kennebunk sought federal grant money to raise their foundations after last May's storm overwhelmed the Mousam River and flooded their homes. The town didn't get any because the flood was virtually unprecedented and believed to be a rare event.
Part of the neighborhood was under water again on Patriot's Day, however.
Joyce Jones was one of the few who were ready. She got a federal loan and a mortgage and spent about $60,000 to raise her house after the floods last year, she said. The work is almost done.
This time around, while her neighbors' homes were flooded, she got some water in her basement because she lost power and her sump pump stopped running. "I would have lost everything again," Jones said.
Now, as residents on Intervale Road clean up a second time, local and state officials are looking for explanations for the back-to-back floods in an area that's not supposed to flood, at least according to federal flood plain maps. The town also may ask again for federal help to raise homes.
REBUILD OR RETREAT?
Preparing properties along the coast for the next storm surge is even more costly and complicated. Sometimes, the question is whether to rebuild or retreat.
It'll be up to the owners whether two Saco houses destroyed by the storm surf this month will be rebuilt. If they do rebuild, state rules will require that they move the homes as far from the surf as possible and build them on posts.
"Other properties that are getting rebuilt are being built on posts," said Stephen Dickson, state marine geologist at the Maine Geological Survey. "They did fine. The ocean went underneath them."
Saco city officials, meanwhile, are planning to rebuild Surf Street, an oceanfront road left nearly defenseless from storm surges because of chronic erosion there. It won't be the first time the road has been rebuilt. And officials admit it may not be the last.
"We can rebuild it, but a storm could come in and destroy it a year from now," said Saco Emergency Management Director Steven Boucouvalas.
The city and residents want to keep the seaside road and neighborhood in place for at least several more years.
That should be enough time, they hope, for the federal government to authorize more than $25 million to repair a breakwater that's believed to be accelerating erosion.
Surf Street, which provides access to homes there, will cost $200,000 to $300,000 to rebuild, according to Boucouvalas. And there's no guarantee the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay this time, he said.
"We're hoping that it will get rebuilt (with FEMA's help), but we're dealing with a whole bunch of issues and a whole bunch of different agencies," Boucouvalas said. "We're certainly not going to hold up building the street because of that."
Kennebunk also plans to rebuild the battered sea wall at Kennebunk Beach, a $2.5 million project. Despite a shoreline that is moving inland, there's no question of retreat, said town manager Tibbetts.
"We want to rebuild it," he said, "so we don't have to touch it again."
Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:
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