In towns along the Kennebec River, business owners and residents were just beginning on Wednesday to clean out the mud and debris left behind by the raging floodwaters.
But the power is still out in many areas, and the basements of some buildings in places including Hallowell and Gardiner were still full of water as temperatures begin plunging below freezing.
"I've got a nine-foot ceiling down there and it hit the bottom of my beams. So you're talking at least nine feet," said Claude Caron, whose family has run Gerard's Pizza in downtown Gardiner for more than a half-century.
Caron had planned to retire on Friday and let his daughter and son-in-law take over the downtown Gardiner pizza shop started and named for his father. But on Wednesday, Caron was waiting for the floodwaters to recede enough for him to assess the damage to the restaurant's furnace, beer coolers and the propane tanks that allow them to fire up the pizza ovens.
As he put the restaurant floor back in order, Caron said they hadn't seen waters that high in downtown Gardiner in more than 30 years. But he says it could have been a lot worse, because the water came up to just below the base of his cellar door.
Caron said he hopes they can reopen by Jan. 1, allowing him to officially hand over the reins to Gerard Pizza's third generation.
"It's saying 'Bye' to me — it didn't want me to leave," he said with a laugh. "I'll clean this mess up. She's coming in with her husband and we've got a big team coming in this afternoon ... We'll be all right."
Outside, the sidewalks of downtown Gardiner echoed with the hum of generators and water pumps as businesses tried to speed up the natural drainage process. Most were still closed, including the Hannaford supermarket, whose parking lot was still under several feet of water.
The entire stretch of the lower Kennebec — from outside of Skowhegan to Brunswick — remained under a flood warning until Thursday. Flood stage in nearby Hallowell is 11 feet. But the Kennebec was still nearly double that height on Wednesday morning. And much like in Gardiner, historic downtown Hallowell was a chorus of generators, water pumps and sweeping as businesses tried to clean up the mess.
At the Quarry Tap Room, which bills itself as "Hallowell's deepest watering hole," the equipment-filled basement as well as outdoor pavilion and stage were still submerged.
Farther down the block, manager Morgan Rush and other staff at The Frost Factory cannabis shop were making good progress mopping up the gunk and water left behind on their ground floor.
"Yeah, it was pretty high," Rush said. "I came by around 8 o'clock last night and it was probably just under a foot under our door. So pretty high up there."
This was Hallowell's second flood in seven months, but the most severe since 1987. Rush said she and staff had moved all of their inventory and packaging to higher ground before the storm. But they'll have to deal with infrastructure challenges.
"The floors ... they might buckle because of the water," Rush said, pointing to the hardwood floors now free of mud but still wet. "We are going to probably have to get our heat pumps replaced. Hopefully we can fix them because we turned them off (and) the burner we have. And then our basement, luckily we had nothing in there because we had a flood warning last week so we moved everything out of there."
But business was hopping across Water Street at nearby Hallowell Seafood and Produce thanks to a generator and an easy-clean building.
In fact, owner Justin Underwood says they didn't even close on Tuesday as the river flooded water street and crept toward their parking lot.
"We were (open) right to when the water came up," Underwood said. "We made sales after 6 o'clock. They were looking for beer. They weren't looking for much else," he added with a laugh.
Water Street, which is the main thoroughfare in Hallowell, had reopened to traffic by Wednesday morning after being submerged in several feet of water in some places on Tuesday and overnight.
Hallowell Seafood was required to meet flood plain specifications when the family built in 2004 — specs like concrete lower walls, pressure treated lumber and floor drains. So Underwood said they were prepared by the time water receded on Wednesday.
"Hot water, bleach, squeegee it," he said between customers. "It came up six inches so we were fortunate. Any more than that and we start getting a little squirmy."
A few miles upriver in downtown Augusta, Heather Pouliot says the real estate business she runs with her husband, state Sen. Matt Pouliot, was weathering the storm because Realtors could work remotely.
But she hadn't been able to venture into the basement of the building, which they also own. She estimated that the water came up 7-10 feet down there. But on Wednesday afternoon, she had another worry in addition to the floodwaters — and that was the falling temperature. Nighttime temperatures were expected to be in the low 20s on Wednesday and in the low teens on Thursday and Friday nights, with daytime highs not expected to crest the freezing point.
"As far as the building goes, it's bleak," Pouliot said. "We haven't had power and there's no sign we are going to get it in the next few hours. So as temps go down it's getting a bit scary. A lot of other business owners and building owners have it worse than we do because we are a little higher than the rest of them."
Pouliot had been standing on the sidewalk of Water Street with Victoria Abbott, executive director of Bread of Life Ministries and David Hopkins, owner of Merkaba Sol Chocolate Shoppe. Businesses on the river side of the street were still without power because of the flooded basements, but businesses and nonprofits across the street had electricity.
All three said businesses have helped out one another, with those with power offering freezer space, free food and other assistance to their powerless neighbors. And they said that is part of the close-knit, small community spirit of downtown businesses.
But the group acknowledged that the flood comes at a horrible time for many.
"Damage-wise, as far as our business goes we are OK," Hopkins said. "It just got to our lower basement and then stopped and then started to go back down. But loss of business is the worst part right now, being in Christmastime and the last week, and the fact that we're not able to operate because of no power and no heat. It makes it tough."
The Kennebec is not expected to drop below flood stage until Thursday morning.
