BOWDOIN, Maine — Doughty Road in Bowdoin was closed over the weekend and Monday in two different locations, leaving nearly a mile of road completely inaccessible by cars.
Around 20 to 30 homes lost access to other roads unless they walked over exposed dirt breaking under the asphalt.
The closures came from washed-out roads, a byproduct of flash flooding that happens when water gets underneath asphalt, and pushes it up due to pressure.
It happened earlier this season in eastern New Hampshire, Washington County, and Androscoggin County.
There were two locations on Doughty Road broken by washouts that lead to the entrapment. One was near the corner of Doughty Road and Meadow Road, and another was near the corner of Doughty Road and Route 201.
"This is weird. It's never happened," Jeff and Christie Steinman said. "All the other places there have also been roads washed out. We're getting some extreme rain."
The couple said they have lived in Maine all their lives and have never seen a year with this much destruction caused by rain.
While trapped on their road for three days, they walked across a 12-inch wide bridge of dirt on the Meadow Road side of construction in order to pick up groceries.
"I borrowed a car, walked down, and she drove me to my mom's house, where I got her car. And I left my mom's car on the side of the road to bring the groceries over," Christie Steinman said.
While the two surveyed the damage to their neighborhood, another couple who recently bought a home in the neighborhood couldn't access it Monday due to the closures.
"I guess they can't control the weather, but there's been like no progress on the other [Route 201] end. And I'm not sure what the hold up is," Lindsey Ring said.
She is referring to the Route 201 end of washed-out roads, which residents said has been ruined since April.
"The worst case scenario is we go through the winter with a temporary bridge," Bowdoin town selectman Brad Totten said.
Totten said the reason the Route 201 end of washout hasn't been fixed since April is that washed-out roads can only be repaired in the summer months, and it's taken a while to get the applications in to have it repaired.
"It's been a big headache for a lot of towns that didn't realize they had to take care of these culverts," Totten said.
Totten said the culverts, which are underground tunnels for water to flow underneath roads, used to be owned by the state but eventually become municipal property. He said oftentimes towns don't have enough money to perform the upkeep of culverts.
In the meantime, roads in both directions won't be closed for much longer. Construction crews said the Meadow Road end of washouts should have a temporary fix of gravel by Tuesday morning.
There is no official timeline for when both ends of the road can be permanently fixed, but Totten said the goal is to have everything repaired by fall.