Mainers are used to big storms, especially in winter. Residents still talk about the blizzard of 1978 and the Patriot’s Day storm of 2007. But on January 10 and 13, Maine was hit by two ferocious, wind-driven storms that caused massive damage along the coast—wiping out docks, shoving historic fish houses off their pilings, damaging roads, completely destroying oceanfront homes and even damaging lighthouses that had withstood the ocean’s fury for a hundred years or more.
The scope of the damage was unprecedented. A King tide contributed to the mayhem, but what set the storms apart was where they came from. Both storms rolled in from the southeast, an unusual direction for winter storms, and at an angle that was unfortunately almost perfectly perpendicular to Maine’s coastline, driving ocean waters up rivers and into harbors. Gale-force winds—a 95-mph gust was recorded at Isle au Haut—pushed the ocean waters into places that had historically been considered safe havens, and water levels rose to all-time, or near-all-time highs, with Portland’s tide gauge hitting 14.57 feet. It was a level that no one had ever seen before.
Harbors from New Hampshire to the Canadian border took poundings not seen in people’s lifetimes.
In New Harbor, a small village of about 700 people with an active winter lobster fleet, the first storm washed more than a half dozen fish houses off their pilings and deposited them into the harbor, where they were smashed to pieces by the surging waves and swells. Most docks were either damaged or destroyed, leaving the local government to hire every available marine operator to scramble in the two days before the next storm would hit to clear entire structures, pilings and beams from the harbor to prevent further damage to the remaining docks and the fishing fleet.
Sam Temple, president of Rockport Marine Inc. in Rockport, reported to his clients via email that the water had made a rare entry into the yard’s boatbuilding shed, where equipment had to be raised off the floor to protect it from the salt water. In preparation for the second storm, Temple and his crew put membranes and sandbags on the shed doors to prevent further water intrusion. Three days later, during the second storm, despite an even higher tide, Rockport Harbor and Rockport Marine fared a little better.
“The primary thing that helped [during the second storm] was that the wind was a little more out of the east as opposed to Wednesday’s, which had been more southerly and built up big swells,” Temple told Soundings. He said it was the worst storm he had ever seen in Rockport and the worst storm that Rockport Marine Vice President Taylor Allen had seen since moving to Rockport in 1962.
Up and down the coast, boatyards got hit. Brooklin Boatyard on Eggemoggin’ Reach, Lyman-Morse in Thomaston and Newman & Gray Boatyard in Great Cranberry had docks damaged or water in their sheds and according to reports, Brown’s Boatyard in North Haven got hit hard.
“The scary piece of it is the phenomenon of having a southerly storm in January,” said Temple. “Our yard is well situated for the northerly winter events, but it’s unusual and strange to have a southerly storm like that in the winter. The direction is less predictable.”
Some scientists think this weather pattern could become more regular. Susie Arnold, director of the Center for Climate and Community at the Island Institute in Rockland, said Mainers should not be surprised by surging seas and inland flooding sparked by climate change. “We are now living in a world of extremes, and this is the new normal,” she said at a special meeting of the Maine Climate Council that Maine Governor Janet Mills called right after the storms.
Maine Emergency Management Agency Director Pete Rogers agreed. “In less than one month, Maine experienced three unprecedented and devastating storms,” he said. “Looking back over the last 12 months, Maine has had at least three additional disasters and a hurricane that narrowly missed the state. Something has changed.”
Arnold said there’s a 20 percent chance that it will happen each year. “By 2050, the sea level along Maine’s coast is predicted to rise 18 inches,” she said. “This will [happen] more often as seas continue to rise.”
This article was originally published in the April 2024 issue.
