HARPSWELL, Maine — Two years ago, Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, was swimming in Mackerel Cove off Bailey Island in Harpswell with her daughter when she was fatally bitten by a shark.
A tooth fragment recovered from her body was examined, and officials confirmed it belonged to a great white shark.
"When we found out what happened, it was just traumatic for everybody,” Cathy Piffath said. "It was a total shock.”
Piffath, who co-owns H2Outfitters near where the deadly attack happened, rents kayaks for a living. She said it was an activity few wanted to do following Holowach's death. To this day, she still gets customers who are nervous about going out on the water.
"It was an eye-opener for everyone in the community, and we had a staff meeting the very next day after the attack to figure out how we're going to make people feel better," Piffath explained. "We came up with tips to keep our kayakers safe, like staying together in groups and watching marine life from a distance."
The attack not only caused businesses like H2Outiffters to take action to protect folks, but it also motivated the town of Harpswell to do the same.
"[The incident] became the catalyst really for both a community discussion to some degree and awareness, but more a statewide awareness and communication," Arthur Howe, a Harpswell emergency management agent, said.
In 2021, a year after the attack, Howe said the town deployed a new lifesaving purple shark warning flag system.
"It was used twice this year in 2022 and twice last year in 2021," Howe said.
The flag is raised at any nearby public beaches for up to 24 hours following a shark sighting.
“It's a novelty, so people wonder what it is and they can ask questions about it," Howe said while explaining the importance of the flag system. "We’re just trying to create an awareness, if you will, and a little bit of education for the public so that they can make a relatively informed decision when they're kayaking, canoeing, sailing, swimming, whatever they’re doing."
Just this year, Harpswell expanded its flag warning system by adding a year-round 24/7 hotline for folks to call and report shark sightings.
The number, 1-800-501-1111, directs people to an answering service hosted by the Cumberland County Regional Communications Center, which will collect some information about the sighting and then reach out directly to a Harpswell representative who will contact the caller.
"Some of the shark work we do here now at the Maine Department of Marine Resources was spurred on following the really tragic event," DMR marine scientist Matthew Davis said. "It caused a lot of interest in tracking sharks because previously we didn't have much of a pulse on white shark activity here in Maine."
Davis said the department has been collecting long-term data on shark movement using dozens of passive acoustic receivers deployed off Maine's coast, which detected 29 different white sharks last year.
As of this summer, the department started a new pilot program using a large real-time shark warning buoy.
When a tagged white shark swims nearby, it will instantly ping allowing coastal communities to be warned faster than ever before.
“If we can prove this is a good use of funds for public safety, then in the future we could potentially purchase more,” Davis said.