ALLAGASH, Maine — The National Weather Service lifted the flood warning on the upper St. John River after the ice jam in Allagash let go early Friday afternoon and the water level dropped nearly 11 feet.
At 8 a.m. Friday, the water level of the river at the Dickey gage had been 1 inch over the 25-foot flood stage. By 12:45 p.m., as the ice jam broke up, it had dropped to 14.3 feet, according to the weather service.
Emergency management officials had predicted the jam could let go Thursday night, leading to increased risks of flooding downriver, and residents had been on high alert all night.
“The men stayed up all night watching that jam,” Allagash resident Darlene Kelly Dumond said Friday morning. “They said the water fluctuated all night long but just by inches.”
Twenty-four years ago, on April 9, a massive ice jam released on the St. John River, knocking homes off their foundations, trapping others in their homes and destroying all three bridges leading in and out of the small community 40 miles west of Fort Kent.
About 4 a.m. Thursday, the St. John River rose about 15 feet in 90 minutes behind the jam in Allagash, according to Greg Stewart of the U.S. Geological Service in Maine. Stewart said this was considered a historically rapid rise and ranked among the top five fastest river level increases since records have been kept in the last 70 years.
Ice jams can cause water to rise rapidly upriver from their location, creating flooding conditions. When the ice jam breaks up, all that backed up water is released and can cause more flooding problems in low-lying areas as it rushes downriver.
On Friday, Arlo Caron, 74, and his girlfriend, Kathy Cortez, 63, were watching the situation from the wrong side of Ferry Road, which was closed Thursday until the ice went out.
Despite being cut off from the rest of the world for about 24 hours, Caron was not concerned Friday.
“What’s to be worried about?” he said by telephone. “The water would have to rise another 40 feet to get to me.”
Caron said he and Cortez had plenty of supplies for themselves and their pets: a terrier dog, four parakeets and two cockatiels.
“We stocked up beforehand,” Caron, a retired registered Maine Guide, said. “I figured this would be a big [ice] jam.”
Even if the power had gone out, Caron could still cook on the propane stove.
“This is just an ice jam,” he said. “It ain’t bothering us any.”
Darren Woods, director of the Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency was in the air over northern Maine Friday to get a birds-eye perspective on the ice and flooding situation.
“On the St. John, the ice jam was moving in the Allagash area, but we didn’t think it would go very far based on the ice ahead of it,” he said Friday afternoon.
According to area residents, the ice that broke free in Allagash was jammed up in St. Francis late Friday afternoon.
About 16 miles downriver officials in Fort Kent were keeping an eye on the ice Friday as it moved closer to town
“It’s good that it let go,” Don Guimond, Fort Kent town manager, said Friday afternoon. “But from a planning perspective it’s a bit harder for us since there are no [measuring] gauges between here and St. Francis.”
Instead, Guimond and his staff are relying on firsthand observations to plan for any potential flooding activity when the ice starts moving again, saying it will take the ice about 90 minutes to get from St. Francis to Fort Kent.
“We are keeping an eye on it, there is no question about it,” Guimond said. “But in general things look OK. The [St. John] River is clear in Fort Kent, so once the ice starts moving, it should be clear sailing.”
Beyond Fort Kent, however, another jam has developed near Grand Isle, according to Woods of the Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency.
“From the Fort Kent town line toward Grand Isle there is open water up to Grand Isle where the jam has stopped, [and] when you get into Van Buren, the ice is more solid, so it is holding things back,” he said.
Officials also are keeping an eye on an ice jam on the Aroostook River near the Fort Fairfield and Caribou town line that caused flooding Wednesday night and prompted the Maine Department of Transportation to close a section of Grimes Road, also known as North Caribou Road Wednesday and Thursday.
That road was open again by Friday.
Fort Fairfield closed the bridge over the Aroostook River for a brief time Friday afternoon when the ice jam on the river broke up and reformed in the center of town.
“The ice is packed in on the river from the Riverside Cemetery area to Tinker Dam,” Mike Bosse, Fort Fairfield town manager, said Friday. “It’s a solid sheet of ice, and we are now kind of in a holding pattern.”
He said the bridge was closed as a precautionary measure while the ice was moving, adding he anticipates an “easy ice out” with the ice melting and flowing away.
“There will really be no problems unless we get a lot of rain,” he said.
No significant rains are predicted for northern Maine over the next couple days, but the weather service also is tracking a series of storms expected to bring up to 3 inches of rain to parts of the state Monday and create flooding conditions in areas Down East that were hit with record snowfall this past winter.
