RUMFORD, Maine — On Wednesday afternoon in Rumford, an angry Androscoggin River gushes beneath a cheerful, bright blue sky. The dichotomy is remarkable: fewer than 72 hours before, raging rain and winds led to what locals say was the worst flood in the area since 1987.
George O'Keefe has been the economic development director in Rumford for five years. He said since Monday, a number of local businesses and homes have been hit hard by flooding. Power is still out in some places, leaving many without heat in dropping temperatures—and the damage to the Hosmer Field Athletic Complex is significant.
"I think some people are going to have a much larger, much harder path ahead of them," O'Keefe said.
O'Keefe said with all things considered, the aftermath of this storm could have been worse. New box culverts the town installed at two streams in 2022 and a few months ago did their job, preventing roads from washing out with better drainage. The flood wall put up by the river in 1936 also protected the downtown area.
Still, though, he said with more extreme weather patterns like droughts and floods, the town is going to need more investment in its infrastructure to deal with other potentially damaging storms down the road.
"We respect nature, and we respect that the river is going to do things that we can’t control," O'Keefe said, later adding, "Climate poses some pretty serious challenges in inland Maine."
For Rumford resident Beth Bellegard, those challenges just became personal. She lives near the river in an area called the "Virginia" neighborhood and said by Tuesday afternoon, water had filled her basement and reached the first floor of her house. She said she's staying in a hotel currently.
"Everything in the basement is destroyed. Our home is baseboard heat, so all of our heating and washer and dryer and freezer were downstairs. We’ll have to deal with that," Bellegard said.
When asked whether this experience was frightening for her, Bellegard teared up and walked away from NEWS CENTER Maine's camera momentarily. As for how she's getting through this challenging time, she said she takes it little by little.
"[I] deal with it one day at a time, one minute at a time," Bellegard said.
Across the river in Mexico, Town Manager Raquel Welch said crews have been working around the clock to deal with six or seven flooded-out roads and around 50 people who are displaced and staying in nearby shelters.
"My police department, my fire department, the CMP workers—I mean, everybody has been going around the clock. My fire department—I don’t think they’ve slept in three days," Welch said.
She said Mexico was isolated for at least an entire day—a reality that rural communities know quite well when disasters like this hit. Welch said she has no idea how long cleaning up will take.
“You don’t have much here to begin with, and then you take away the little bit that you do have. I mean, you have nothing," Welch said.
Some people in Mexico are just feeling lucky to be alive and safe. Karleigh Farrington lives in the area near where the Androscoggin River and Swift River meet. She said what happened this week was scary and sudden.
"All of a sudden the rain stopped, and everything just started rising," Farrington said. "[Water] came from this end and that end, so it kind of just hit us at once."
Farrington said she has been in her home, which was partially flooded, for a year. Now, she's staying with a family member while she and her family deal with the damage and regroup.
"[We're] trying to get our lives back to where we can," Farrington said. "You can’t stop moving. You have to keep moving because if you don’t, you know, things just get worse."
Welch said the best thing people in the area can do right now is call 211 if they've been affected by this flooding at all. She said that should help the area get the money it needs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.