FARMINGTON —  Repair work started early Wednesday morning on Route 43 and the Weeks Mills Road in the wake of Tuesday’s storm.

Route 43, near the animal shelter heading toward Industry, was down to one lane of traffic as Maine Department of Transportation workers repaired the edges during a light rain.

The Weeks Mills Road, at the intersection with Route 43, was opened to all traffic, Farmington Public Works Director Denis Castonguay said about noon Wednesday. More work is expected to be done.

The road was only open to local traffic as a Farmington Public Work’s crew replaced culverts and restored bankings.

“There was such a tremendous amount of water that came down from the field at the top of the hill, it tore up stone and riprap along the ditches,” he said.

The Route 43 damage was caused by too much water in too short a time. The deluge washed out ditches from the area of the animal shelter down to the intersection with Weeks Mills Road on one side and Skunk Hollow on the other, Castonguay said.

“It all happened in about a 15-minute period,” he said. “It all came down and ended up in Skunk Hollow.”

The town crew hauled in a lot of gravel, stone and put in new culverts on the lower section of Weeks Mills Road. It’s expensive and will hurt the department’s budget, he said.

Although the town crew had been out all night working on the roads, they continued Wednesday to make the roads passable.

“We’re getting major projects done today,” Castonguay said.

The rest of the work is expected to take up to a week to finish.

The top of Cowen Hill, off Route 27, had a major washout. A crew rebuilt that road Wednesday.

Although Clover Mill Road was flooded after the Tuesday night storm, there was not much damage, he said. Temple Stream comes up and over the road easily and then recedes.

The crew did find a major problem on Front Street. The cause of a sinkhole discovered Wednesday morning in front of the Front Street Exchange building is a mystery, Castonguay said.

There are other minor washouts that the crew will continue to work on, he said.

Despite warnings of potential tornadoes, Franklin County Emergency Management Director Tim Hardy was unaware of any in the county.

Temple and Industry had damage that closed some roads Tuesday night, he said.  As far as he knew they were open Wednesday but it will probably take a long time to get them back to where they were, he added.

He received no reports of damage from other towns, he said.

When nearby residents on Route 43/Industry Road, Maranda Lane and Lynn Meader, came home Tuesday night they found there was enough water for their neighbor to kayak around his yard.

As they watched the work and the gushing water of Cascade Brook beside their property Wednesday morning, they surveyed the debris of wood and rocks left in their backyard.

An MDOT traffic worker said a crew had worked on the road till about 10 p.m. Tuesday and were back at 7 a.m. Wednesday to get the road repaired and open to traffic.

abryant@sunjournal.com

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