Wiscasset family gets driveway back post-storm
The recent flooding that washed out some area roads also piled inches of dirt and gravel onto an Old Bath Road, Wiscasset family’s driveway. Wednesday morning, May 10, public works took the deposit away, making Michelle (Chase) Bailey’s day.
“What a great town we live in. The town of Wiscasset came to my mother and my rescue,” Bailey wrote Wiscasset Newspaper via email. She explained in a May 10 phone interview, she and her mother Connie Chase live at the corner of Acorn and Old Bath roads, and neither the floodwater nor all the debris had them trapped, but the garage flooded and the driveway had dirt and gravel maybe even close to a foot deep in some spots.
“The way the water came, it brought down all of this dirt and it just landed right in our driveway ... It was really deep near our garage and so, it was a lot ... There was just so much dirt and big rocks, I didn’t know what the heck to do,” the Marine veteran said.
Bailey came home to the mess, which she was able to drive up onto to park; Chase’s car was in the garage. Mother and daughter found a public works crew in the neighborhood and were told the department would be back to help with the driveway, which was good news as Bailey had no luck online getting a business for the job.
The crew was nearby fixing a clogged culvert – the culprit in the driveway deposit, said Public Work Director Ted Snowdon. In a phone interview May 11, Snowdon said he and two other workers took less than an hour with a backhoe and a sweeper May 10 to remove the dirt and gravel. “It was just the right thing to do.”
The department put the material back into the roadside it came from, Snowdon said. He added, he appreciated the family’s patience as the department had been busy addressing other culvert and road issues from the storm.
Bailey was thankful for the help. She laughed as she recalled trying to hug one of the crew members. “I was really happy (and) grateful ... to see the town help like that, because I’ve lived in a lot of different places, and I’ve never seen a town actually help out a resident, so it was really wonderful.”