The Fire Chief's Tale

This is Steve Nichols's town. You can tell that driving around town with him, as nearly every driver he passes lifts a hand in greeting. The bus drivers, the DPW workers, people driving past all recognize him in his burgundy pick-up.

Nichols has been the chief here 17 years, going on 10 full-time. He's been a member of the department for 32 years. Lived in Kennebunk all his life.

So when he talks about the damage left behind by last week's storm, you listen. Photographer Kevin Byron and I were fortunate enough to ride along with the chief earlier this week as he pointed out the areas of town hardest hit by the Patriots Day storm and recounted the grueling days he and his team spent protecting the town and its people. This is his story.

KENNEBUNK — Nichols had his first inkling trouble was coming when he received a text message from the York County Emergency Management Agency that Friday afternoon. He'd taken the day off, with an eye toward making it a long weekend, with Patriot's Day on Monday.

The message said Sanford and Shapleigh were going to open their dams and let some water down the Mousam River. A storm was coming.

Nichols called Kennebunk Light and Power to give them a heads up, but they'd already heard. They'd opened their dams the day before.

Then he called Deputy Chief David "Duffy" Cluff and asked him to get the word out: all hands on deck for a meeting at 4 p.m. Sunday at Washington Hose.

Before the meeting, Nichols made up a flyer telling residents about the coming storm. It read, "This storm is being compared to the 1991 storm," and, "we recommend anyone along Middle Beach and Great Hill Road to relocate until this storm is done." It spoke about 25-foot waves, wind gusts of 60 miles per hour ,and up to 5 inches of rain.

Following the meeting on Sunday, which drew 40 or more firefighters, Nichols and his crew headed to the beach. There they went door to door to talk to residents.

"We told them if they had a shelter to go to, they should go," he said. They also told them the regional shelter in Saco was open.

For each empty house, a firefighter tied a piece of barricade tape to the door. It would help them prioritize which houses to go to if searches would be needed later on, he said.

As night set in, an engine truck drove slowly up Beach Avenue as waves lapped at the sea wall.

Nichols posted four firefighters in each station for the overnight shift. The rest he sent home. High tide was at 10:40 that night, and he planned to keep watch. It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. He stayed until 3 a.m., then headed home for a couple hours of sleep, thinking the town was holding up well. Opening the dams had dropped the river a "good 2 feet" he said, and the beachfront wasn't looking too bad.

"We thought we would be in pretty good shape," he said.

But the morning was coming, and with it, a new tide.

The coming tide

In the morning, it was clear the water was rising.

"We knew at 8 in the morning we were going to have trouble," Nichols said.

The waves were pounding Gooch's Beach and the sea wall. Water was cascading down the streets, pooling on lawns and driveways. And not everyone had left for safety. There were still a handful of residents riding out the waves on Great Hill Road, and Bill Ward was out at Lord's Point.

As the morning wore on and the 11 a.m. high tide time crept closer, so did the waves. Nichols said Bayberry Road and Surf Lane had nearly 3 feet of water covering them, and it was clear the sea wall wasn't going to hold. Nichols watched as pavement rolled up like paper.

"I was so busy taking care of things at the beach," he said.

But that wasn't the only place in trouble.

Cluff called at 9 a.m.

"He said he could see the water level was coming up on Intervale," Nichols said. "It was coming close to the backs of the houses."

By afternoon, the sea wall at Gooch's was gone, along with the sidewalk and parking lane. And Cluff had called Kennebunk Light and Power to turn off power to Intervale again. The water was just too high.

Nichols called his father, whom he knew kept a rain gage. The weathermen had predicted 3 to 5 inches over the course of the storm. Already, though, his dad told him, more than 6 inches had fallen. And it was still coming down.

Predictions for Monday night weren't looking good, either. High tide was coming and with it, more destruction.

The aftermath

Monday night's tide wasn't quite as high as the one that morning. By then the storm's direction had turned a bit, and instead of Gooch's, Middle Beach took the hit. Water flowed over onto the street, ripping up the sidewalk and road. A highway department sideloader stayed on the scene with the firefighters, fighting to keep a lane of road open so emergency vehicles could get through.

By Tuesday morning, the worst was over.

Kennebunk Beach, stretching from Mother's to Gooch's, looked like a war zone. Eighteen families had been driven from their homes on Intervale Road. Downtown businesses were washed out, including the Kennebunk Sewer District, which was under more than 3 feet of water.

And dozens of residents had basements full of water waiting to be pumped out.

Now the clean-up work would begin. Nichols and his crew would spend the next three days pumping out basements all over town, siphoning off water from the Sewer District buildings and fielding calls from desperate residents. But that first day, Tuesday, they knew they needed help. They called in the National Guard.

By 6 p.m. that night, National Guardsmen were posted at each end of Beach Avenue and at the mouth of Boothby Road. And Nichols had sent his firefighters home.

"The guys were just beat," he said. "They were tripping over themselves."

By 7 the next morning they were back on the job, pumping basements. By Thursday afternoon, he sent the National Guard home. By Friday afternoon, they started the long process of cleaning off equipment and packing up hoses.

By Saturday, they were out fighting a brush fire off Alfred Road.

"After all that rain ...;" Nichols laughed, shaking his head.

Monday morning, he headed out in his truck for a tour of the damage that wasn't as high profile as the beach or Intervale. He pointed out a spot on Cole Road where a new culvert had washed out, pieces of road chewed away by floodwaters on Perkins Lane and Downing Road. Sections of road washed away on Alewive. Broken trees, scattered rocks, silt climbing into fields. A drive down Emmons Road revealed bridge repairs needing to be done. And everywhere, branches lay scattered across yards and lining the roads, waiting for pick-up.

"The town is going to be forever cleaning up this brush on the side of the road," Nichols sighed.

He still worries about the people on Intervale, too.

"I feel bad for them, I really do," he said. He said he doesn't know if opening or closing the dams will change things for them, though, since everywhere he goes he sees undammed rivers that flooded their banks.

He points to a house on the Arundel line, off Downing Road, where appliances and furniture are lined up on the lawn, soaking up the sun.

"When my dad was a teenager, he was out on the river and saw contractors putting houses in down there," Nichols said of Intervale. "He told them, 'I've seen this whole area under water.' But who's going to listen to a teenager?"

Still, with all the damage the town has seen, Nichols is relieved everyone was kept safe, and he credits the town's other departments, from the highway department to the police department, for keeping everyone that way.

"I can't say enough about public works and the police department," he said. "We all worked so well together."

He paused.

"Of course, we had a practice run last year."