WATERBORO, Maine —
York County Sheriff William King says a phone call was made to the office around 6 a.m. Tuesday morning to report erosion on Scooter Way in Waterboro.
“Once the water was high, it started eroding some of the dirt underneath the bridge, and then one of the jersey barriers collapsed and hit the culvert which just exacerbated everything,” King said.
The erosion followed heavy rainfall that hit southern Maine the night before, which caused a flash flood warning for York County.
This is the second time this section of the road has washed out in the last 10 years.
“Everybody uses this short little pass-through as a quick jaunt to the main road ... It’s a busy little triangle,” Chris Tarazewich said.
Chris Tarazewich and Ashley Whittaker have been living on Middle Road for the past six years and use Scooter Way to access their farm to feed their animals.
“We have animals up in the woods over here, so cows and goats. We usually use the road to get to them and feed them, so we’ll have to go around. It’ll make it a little more challenging, but we’ll handle it,” Whittaker said.
“A lot of the vehicles use Scooter Way as a bypass to get to the West Road and this is a direct route to get to the high school. So, it is going to disrupt the normal flow of traffic,” King said.
Sheriff King adds that this is a great illustration of how heavy rain can cause havoc to infrastructure and for what’s currently happening in Texas.
“It’s just a stark reminder of what people are dealing with currently in Texas and what they dealt with in Kentucky. The power of water and why we never want anyone to enter a road that’s flooded out or with rushing water. Even something like this, if you see that some of the roadway eroded away, do not enter it," King said.
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