Two months after many wooden piers along Maine’s coast were severely damaged or destroyed by a pair of storms, another storm has brought some additional destruction.
Perry’s Lobster Shack in Surry, which functions as a lobster buying pier for local fishermen and as a seasonal takeout restaurant, was destroyed Sunday when it was submerged by storm surge in Union River Bay.
“There’s nothing left but pilings,” Seth Michael Cote, the pier’s owner, said Tuesday.
The loss of the pier is the latest setback for working waterfront properties along the Maine coast, which are struggling to stay in business despite the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. There have been multiple storms since December that have whipped the coast with high winds and pushed water levels over the tops of piers and roadways, making them unusable.
Cote said the property, located near popular Newbury Neck Beach, survived the high winds and heavy seas on Jan. 10 and 13 without a problem, even though other piers in Milbridge, New Harbor, Gouldsboro and elsewhere were destroyed in those storms.
The tides in Sunday’s storm did not reach the same heights as in January, according to National Weather Service data collected in Bar Harbor and Portland.
But Cote said the conditions in Union River Bay appeared to be worse Sunday than in those other storms, with the surge completely covering the top of the fixed pier, and wind gusts in the Blue Hill area surpassing 60 mph.
“The tide was crazy this time,” Cote said. “The southeast [wind] is what we fear and is what we got.”
Kathleen Billings, town manager in the fishing port of Stonington, said the impact from Sunday’s storm was not as great as from the ones two months ago, when several commercial piers along the busy waterfront were severely damaged.
But a private wooden pier off Allen Street that was struck in January received further damage on Sunday, causing its deck to fall into the harbor, Billings said. The floating deck held together, which allowed a group of people to tie it to shore during the storm so it wouldn’t float into the harbor and damage boats, she said.
“The repetitive nature of these storms is starting to take a toll on people,” Billings said. Other piers that were damaged in January may suffer the same fate in the next storm, she said, because insurance companies aren’t paying claims and, even if a pier owner has money to pay for it, the few companies that are equipped and experienced in rebuilding docks are booked solid.
“There’s no money for it,” Billings said. “And it’s so hard to get repairs.”
The overall impact from Sunday’s storm seems to be more muted than in January, with county officials in Ellsworth and Rockland saying they haven’t received reports of damage so far. But there was destruction in other places. According to the Harpswell Anchor, the storm dealt another round of harm to Potts Point causeway, where the twin January storms destroyed the town dock.
In Surry, Cote has filed a claim to see if his insurance company will pay out money he needs to rebuild his pier, which likely would cost around half a million dollars. He doesn’t have the money to afford it himself, and so is not sure how he’ll rebuild without getting substantial financial assistance, he said.
“I was hoping to open for Mother’s Day, but that’s not going to happen,” Cote said.
Cote said he prays to God to help him through the possible permanent loss of the pier, which was built by his fisherman grandfather, who used it for himself and other area lobstermen. In recent years, the business has bought lobster from seven fishermen, Cote said. It has also employed 24 people at the peak of summer, when diners eat lobster at picnic tables on the dock.
If Cote can rebuild the pier, he’d like to extend it to its original 120-foot length. It has been 100 feet long for about two decades, after 20 feet at the end was damaged by sea ice. He would also like to rebuild it two feet higher than it was, to make it more storm resistant.
Even with the dock’s future in the air, Cote said he’s found reason to be thankful. On Monday, about 20 volunteers helped clear its wreckage off the beach, with a pulp truck from Ellsworth contracting firm R.F. Jordan hauling the pieces away.
“It would have taken us a week to clean it up,” Cote said.