GLENBURN, Maine — It's mud season in Maine, but some have it a lot muddier than others.
"It's worse than I've seen it in a long time," said Glenburn resident Erin Howard.
Residents living along the last mile of Ohio Street in Glenburn have been forced to park at the top of the road which is paved, and walk through knee-deep mud just to get home.
"If we see somebody walking, we pick them up and take them to their vehicle," said Howard.
The road is a muddy mess that has become a sinkhole for cars and for people walking to their cars.
Cars with four-wheel drive are getting stuck in the mud, including a Maine State Police trooper's vehicle, which needed to be towed Saturday.
Emergency vehicles are unable to reach the roughly thirty homes on this stretch of road, which has left the estimated sixty residents living there on edge.
"If somebody's house burned down, we're just going to watch them burn," said Howard, reluctantly. We're just going to watch "their house burn. I mean, there's nothing we can do if somebody's house burns. We pay taxes. We don't even get a tax break for not being able to have the fire department, the ambulance service, [or] a state trooper come down and help us with the issues we're having at that time."
Howard has lived on the dead end road in Glenburn for 22 years and said this is the first year in a long time that she cannot get home heating oil delivered to her house without the truck getting stuck in the mud.
"There's water leaking on [the road,] water sitting, its just made it into a muck mess," said Howard. "All the money and effort that everybody has put in has just washed away."
School buses never travel that far down the street to pick up or drop off kids and postal service only goes as far as the paved road.
During Maine's mud season, trash collectors stop traveling door to door and a dumpster is left at the top of the road for residents.
"It's a bad situation for the residents down here," said Don Rogers, who has lived in his home on Outer Ohio Street for the past 17 years. "With that many people down here paying taxes, you'd think that our town would give us some help."
Glenburn's town manager Dan McClung said he's aware of the situation but that the road is private, and therefore not maintained by the town.
In a statement, McClung went on to say, "the Town of Glenburn is always concerned for the safety and well being of the residents and will continue to monitor this situation on a daily basis. Emergency Services have been instructed to use all means possible to respond to any calls on this road while this problem persists."
"If there's a medical issue down here, somebody's house catches on fire, they're screwed and they're on their own," said Rogers. "That's a dangerous situation to have."
"We'll have to just maintain to live down there," said Howard of her street. "That's where our home is. My grandparents live down that road. That's where we have spent our whole lives. I just worry about the people getting injured down there and not being able to get help to save their lives."