NEWRY, Maine — Dec. 18 and the days that followed have left vivid memories for those who work at the Sunday River ski resort and for people living in nearby Bethel.
It was the week before Christmas when the rains came and the flood waters rose.
"The team here really embraced the challenge," Sunday River General Manager Brian Heon said. "Everybody from mountain operations, snow sports, to our rentals to our retail, the team just came together and understood we had some problem areas and had to address them."
For Sunday River, the ski season had started well, and the slopes and trails on the sprawling resort were about 40 percent open for skiing.
Then it began to rain, and rained hard.
"It was my day off," Heon recalled several weeks later, as he stood on the deck at the South Ridge lodge.
"So it started raining and about 9 a.m., and I knew something was a little different… with some of the calls [that came] on my phone. So I decided to come up to the resort."
What he found was rising streams and rivers, and water pouring off the slopes from rain and melting snow. Ski trails were getting damaged by the water and parking lots were starting to flood.
As the water kept rising, Heon said he could see things were getting worse.
"That was an impetus to close for the day. We knew this was just the beginning of the rain that was coming."
They got a bigger shock when a stream, roaring downhill, washed out a big chunk of the access road to the resort’s Grand Summit Hotel, leaving the hotel and its 100 guests, plus staff, essentially stranded.
Fortunately, the resort never lost power, so the staff could focus on helping guests make the best of it, Vice President of Lodging Meredith Harrop said.
"So we had front desk, and housekeeping, and food and beverage that were living at our property and also serving the guests," Harrop said.
Staff members were living in the hotel during the storm because roads in many surrounding towns had flooded and people couldn't go home.
In downtown Bethel, floodwaters from the Androscoggin and several other rivers rose rapidly, cutting off roads in and out of town, and even isolating different parts of the town from each other.
"Our village, which is the core of our business community and a lot of residents, lost power for two days which is extremely unusual," Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce Director Jessi Perkins said.
Some businesses were flooded with three or more feet of water inside, she said, all of that damage, the loss of power, and the closing of Sunday River came as a shock to the community, just gearing up for Christmas and the busy season.
"Sunday River is known for being able to quickly come back from any weather setback, typically a day or two if it rains. You forget all about it—Sunday River has it covered. But the extra tricky part is it happened right before the holiday, and that week, Christmas week, is extremely busy and an important kick-off for the rest of the businesses in town."
Instead, the townspeople and local businesses helped each other and waited for the water to recede so cleanup could begin.
Up on the mountains, Brian Heon says they started making repairs once the rain stopped. The resort would be closed for two and a half days.
"So we had probably 10 to 15 subcontractors with excavators and skid steers," Heon recalled. "And not just us calling them, but some of them calling us saying, 'We see what’s going on. What can we do to help?"
He said those crews worked hand in hand with the resort’s own crew to make repairs. Those included dealing with washouts and hauling away several landslides that had come down next to base lodges.
And, of course, finding a way to open up the hotel road. A contractor brought in a steel logging bridge, and 30 hours after the huge washout, the hotel road reopened with a single lane crossing the gap.
That relieved the immediate pressure and concern, although Heon said everyone in the hotel had been fine.
"I would say the experience at the hotel, if you didn’t know you were cut off, it was like any other day."
The crew that maintains the ski slopes worked with the snow that remained after the rain, got some of the trails and slopes repaired, and Sunday River was able to open for limited skiing again after two and a half days.
"It's unbelievable what some repair work and fresh snow, and guests coming back, can do not just for the resort, but for the team and all of Sunday River," Heon said.
Downtown Bethel still had homes and businesses dealing with flood damage, and the wider area still had to deal with closed and flooded roads for a while. Then Bethel had one last problem. Ironically, a lack of water.
"As soon as the power kicked back on and internet came back, our local water system—basically the water disappeared, and there was a leak. It took a day to recover from that," Perkins said.
All said, some repairs will need to be made in spring. And there will be lessons to learn from the flooding, changes, and precautions that may be needed to handle future severe storms, which many experts predict will occur as a result of the changing climate.
A month later, some local businesses and residents are still cleaning up, but the town and the resort have largely gone back to the work of winter.
"There was a day about a week and a half ago and maybe two weeks after the event, when I said, 'You know what? We’re moving on,'" Heon explained. "We have done the repairs, the team is healthy, everybody’s back. Skiing is where it needs to be, so we’re going forward. And that really started when we turned the snow-making back on after the rain, and that just got everybody jazzed."