MAINE, USA — Maine’s rough, rocky coast is world-famous. But those who make a life and a living there have been reminded too often, recently, how fragile those waterfronts are.
They are threatened by potential real estate development, or simply by business failures. According to data from the State of Maine and the Island Institute, of Maine’s 5,000-plus miles of coastline, 20 are considered "working" waterfront.
Those shorelines are also threatened by Mother Nature. Wednesday was one of those days.
Up and down the state’s coast, rain, melting snow, southeast winds, and a high tide combined to bash and tear at moorings and wharfs.
So widespread was the destruction, Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher took a helicopter ride Thursday to survey the damage.
"Every conversation I’ve had has started with 'I’ve never seen it this bad,'" Keliher said, adding that severe damage stretched across the whole coastline from Kittery to Cutler.
Mainers, though, are a resilient bunch. And when you make your living year-round near or in the unforgiving North Atlantic, you need to be.
In Rockland, a man drove a Bobcat across the parking lot of the Landings Restaurant. The machine scraped its bucket across the pavement, pushing mud, rocks, and sticks that had been cast ashore the day prior.
The man noisily drove past a green inflatable stick figure with a smiling face—the kind roadside businesses often erect to attract customers. Next to this scene, Kate Miller took food orders out of a small food truck parked in the lot; "Eat soup" was emblazoned on the side.
Miller explained how the inflatable man was named David Blowie, and how she owned Landings, but closed down each winter and instead served soup and grilled cheese from the trailer. She had watched the waves and wind thrash some items she could not tie down on Wednesday.
"I was, sort of, in tears a few times in the last 24 hours," she said. "And then you’re just like, 'No, I’m gonna focus on the positive.' We were very lucky."
Those who work the wharfs in Rockland and beyond worked together to clean up—folks like Martin Malloy, owner of MKM Island Lobster, who joined others to clean up debris all morning on the town’s municipal wharf.
"Competition’s one thing, and then there’s like being on the water and having problems with your boat," he compared the scenarios. "Everybody’s been on both ends of the tow line."
The nonprofit Island Institute’s Dr. Jenn Seavey explained how an increasing frequency of volatile storms, mixed with rising sea levels, has spurred the organization and municipalities to plan diverse improvements to different facets of Maine’s waterfronts, such as raising wharf levels while introducing self-sufficient power supplies.
She compared it to taking care of a sick body.
"You’ve gotta approach each one of the stressors to holistically take care of the health of this entire working waterfront," Seavey said.
Coastal Mainers would not wait long to see their waterfronts tested again. NEWS CENTER Maine meteorologists forecast another storm to roll through Saturday, with a tide expected to be a foot higher than in Wednesday’s storm.