The Norway maple last week’s storm brought down on Wiscasset Public Library broke clapboards, put a hole in the roof and did other damage to it, tore wires from an inverter and stabbed holes as deep as eight to 10 inches into the ground, but spared Mark Twain, Library Director Pam Dunning said.

And it only closed the non-profit library a day, Dunning said Monday afternoon as she showed Wiscasset Newspaper the damage and the tree’s remains, a stump six feet across.

Dunham Tree Service cleared the tree away, Doug Merrill & Son Builder made the building tight to the weather, Joe Gagnon of Coastal Climate Control fixed the inverter that heats and air conditions the building, and Jeff Gleason patched the holes in the ground, Dunning said. Wiscasset Newspaper counted about 20 patches around the yard. In the storm overnight Oct. 16 to early Oct. 17, the tree also destroyed the backyard’s picnic table, she said. The tree’s canopy spread over the breadth of the library’s 1980 edition, but spared the 1805 part of the library.

Dunning discovered the tree on the library’s back when she went to raise the shades in the non-fiction room Oct. 17 and saw leaves at the window. “And I’m like, ‘What the heck, is that?’ So I go to the next window over and I’m looking out and there’s leaves there ... Well, I come down to the children’s room and go to look out the door, you couldn’t see any daylight at all, just green with all the leaves pressed up against it ... (the tree) hit so hard it popped a ceiling tile out ... right between the stacks of books and an open walkway.”

The stacks were American classic fiction. (The tree) didn’t want to get Mark Twain wet,” she said smiling. “I don’t know how it didn’t break any windows, didn’t ruin any books ... We lucked out.”

So did powerless patrons. Dunning said the library had power and free WiFi. And when the library reopened, much of the traffic was people with no power. 

Dunning said that after the storm, staff member David Cherry was awesome, stepping up to get a tree business there and helping her put caution tape around the building’s outside. “We wanted to make sure curious people didn’t get too close,” Dunning said. Children’s librarian Laurie Ridgway was home due to a tree blocking her driveway. “She called and said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it in. I’ve got a tree down.’ I said, ‘Guess what? So do we,” she recalled, laughing.

The highest wind gust recorded at Wiscasset Municipal Airport in the storm was 55 mph around 6 a.m. Oct. 17, meteorologist William Watson of National Weather Service’s Gray office said Monday. 

Dunning expected an insurance adjuster Oct. 22. “Until he looks, and gives us some numbers, we can’t really start doing anything else” or know the damage in dollars, she said. Some sheathing on the roof will need repair, some reshingling and a new drip edge installed, but beyond that, thee was no way to know yet, she said.

The tree was there when Dunning started at the library about 30 years ago. Monday, she tried counting its rings for the Wiscasset Newspaper and estimated the age around 70. Will she miss it? It was beautiful, shaded the yard and children played under it, Dunning said. On the plus side, without the tree, the snow will melt faster and the grounds will dry faster after it rains. “Everything’s a trade-off. Nothing’s all bad.”