WINTER HARBOR, Maine (WGME) -- Heavy rains and flash flooding have washed out at least a dozen roads in Maine this week. You can see more than 60 photos of road damage from across the state in our gallery above.
Several communities in eastern Hancock and Washington Counties were pounded with more than five inches of rain in less than four hours.
Some roads have one lane open, but flooding washed out both lanes of traffic on other roads, leaving some coastal families with no way to get in or out of their homes Wednesday morning.
About seven to eight inches in less than four hours,” Gouldsboro Fire Chief Tatum McLean said. “It was coming down in buckets.In northeast Hancock County, a flash flood overnight washed out two roads on Main Street, one in Birch Harbor and another in neighboring Winter Harbor.
Some people who live nearby say their rain gauges showed they got seven inches of rain in just a few hours.
Started around 3 a.m.,” local contractor Dylan Whitten said. “And too much for those culverts to handle evidently. Quite a lot of damage. It’s washed out years before, but never anything like that.McLean says around 4 a.m., he woke to heavy rains but didn’t think much of it until he got up Wednesday morning.
"I noticed my backyard was filling up with water quick,” McLean said. “I then left Winter Harbor to come over this way and noticed the nice road just flashing over.”
His niece took a video of the flooding rushing over Main Street. A short time later, the flash flood washed out the road and culvert beneath it.
There’s like a hilltop,” McLean said. “And everything just kind of runs down this way. And it came down so fast, it couldn’t handle it.Up in Washington County, Maine Forest Rangers flew over three washed-out roads, including one on West Kennebec Road in Machias, which got more than five inches of rain overnight.
In Birch Harbor, the post office and two adjacent businesses were flooded from the heavy rain.
Jesse Christensen owns the entire building whose floors are now covered in mud and water.
There was at least three inches on the floor when I got here this morning,” Christensen said. “But it was like a river running through the place.The MaineDOT is already repairing the damage in Hancock County, where the shoulders were washed out of several roads.
Most are quick fixes, but a bridge will take a little longer to repair.
They say this is going to take about two to three days to fix,” McLean said. “They’re pretty speedy around here.Parts of Acadia National Park were also damaged.
In a post on their Twitter page, the park said sections of the popular Carriage Road could be closed for up to two months.
It’s poor timing heading into the peak season. The park says in multiple locations, up to three layers of the road were washed away.
Park rangers are urging visitors to be extremely careful on trails, as they have yet to fully assess the damage there.
The entire network of bike paths across the Schoodic Peninsula, just east of Mt. Desert Island, is closed because of widespread damage.
The Wild Gardens of Acadia are also closed.
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