It's springtime in Lincoln County, but in a matter of months, it will be winter again, and Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency Director Tod Hartung wants everyone to be prepared.

Not just a little bit prepared, but super-prepared. Like it’s 1998.

In the winter of 2014-15, much of Lincoln County was hit with power outages, some lasting several days. The worst outages were on the peninsulas and in the northern part of the county, but nearly everyone was affected. Most people hunkered down and were able to make do with kerosene lamps and heaters and wood stoves, but the outages then only lasted days, not weeks.

“I remember driving up over the hill from Jefferson, expecting to see lights in Waldoboro,” Hartung said. “Instead, it was totally black.”

He broke down — or wised up, he said, and bought a generator.

Generating solutions

But imagine Lincoln County is hit with an ice storm that rivals 1998, for instance. What would we do?

Well, we'd fire up the generators, of course. But what if you can't fire up the generators because you can't get gas for them?

Why wouldn't you be able to buy gas? Because only three gas stations out of the 27 in the county have backup generators of their own, and without electricity, they can't pump gas, which Hartung discovered during a disaster survey, checking on sites in the county that would provide critical support. And those stations that do have generators are the go-to stations for many of the first responders, Hartung said. They might not have enough fuel or enough electricity to pump it for everyone.

That's not a far-fetched notion. That happened in the ice storm of 1998, when a lot of people had backup plans – wood stoves or fireplaces for heat, wood on hand, camp stoves to cook, and everyone had down comforters to dive beneath when things got really bad. People stayed put, in some cases for weeks, and just waited for the weather to break. People who were really in trouble were those who needed electricity to power water pumps, especially after the first few days when it became almost impossible to get gas for their generators. They were reduced to melting snow or ice for water on wood stoves or buying bottled water, if they hadn't stocked up enough or filled up their bathtubs, stock tubs, or milk jugs.

Even so, they managed, although it was rough on farms and livestock. Today, a lot fewer people prepare for the “big one”, in large part because we just haven't had a big one in a long time. People who are in the area from away, and happen to get caught in a significant early blizzard are often perplexed and angry when the electricity doesn't come back right away.

“I got a call once from a man on the Boothbay peninsula who had been out of power for three hours,” Hartung recalled. “He was calling me asking when the power would come back. I didn't have anything to tell him except 'Call CMP'.” Many people are not prepared for an emergency, and the state has no requirement for backup power. “We can't just tell private companies and businesses that they have to invest in generators,” Hartung said.

Hartung said that winter storms, although the greatest reasons why there are extended losses of power, aren't the only reasons for county-wide emergencies. “We also worry about flooding, wildfires, and storms at other times of the year.” He also pointed out that heavy electric use in the summer can cause brownouts.

Lincoln County hasn't experienced anything larger than a Category 1 hurricane, Hartung said, but the region has to be prepared for it. Straight-line wind storms, called derechos, which often knock down trees and bring down power lines, happen every year. The Patriot's Day Storm of 2007, a nor'easter, caused massive power outages all over the state, washed out roads, and caused significant coastal erosion.

Preparedness begins at home ... but the county needs to get involved

Being prepared has to happen at something other than the household level, although household preparedness is a first line of defense. Hartung hands out brochures to help people prepare a “grab and go bag” if they have to leave their homes, and recommends that each household have a backup plan to survive on its own for at least 72 hours, and possibly more.

Everyone should have some sort of back-up heating system in the winter, such as a functioning wood stove, with plenty of wood or pellets on hand, a kerosene heater with a full container of fuel, or a propane heater with fuel, if power fails. See our sidebar on page 5 for recommendations for a home emergency “grab and go” bag, and other supplies.

But in the worst case scenario, the 1998 ice storm scenario or the 1993 or 1978 blizzard scenario, it could be considerably longer than three days, and that's why it's so important for the county to be prepared. That means municipal buildings, schools, which might serve as cooling or warming stations or shelters, must be able to remain operational. Fire and police and ambulance services must be available.

Hospitals need to be powered, too. And although in Lincoln County many of these sites have invested in generators, they will be useless unless they can obtain the fuel they need to run.

Obtaining generators for free

Hartung said that through the Defense Reutilization and Materials Office, there are often surplus generators available for free. Each municipality or county can obtain them through the Maine Fire Chiefs Association, and under a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, can place them where needed in the county.

In an emergency, the Association could place the generators anywhere they were needed, including gas stations, nursing homes, water treatment plants and emergency shelters.

Casey Stevens, Assistant to the Director of Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency, and Assistant Fire Chief in Newcastle, is the point man for obtaining the materials.

“We can get them,” Stevens said. “They are available, but they are sometimes located pretty far away.” Stevens said that if he were to get a line on a generator located in Kansas City, for instance, he could request it and they would put a lock on it for him.

“But then someone has to go and pick it up within two weeks,” he said. “We can get a $45,000 generator for free, for the cost of picking it up and bringing it here, but it has to happen fast or it goes back on the list.”

They have had difficulty bringing not only generators, but other items that would be useful, back to Lincoln County. “A place in Florida had nine ATVs, which are very useful to get to sites where a car can't get to in an emergency,” Stevens said, “but by the time we got answers back from people who might have been interested in them, they had already been snapped up.”

One large generator is being housed, through a memo of understanding, at the recycling center for the county, and another was brought back to Damariscotta, where it may be used either at Great Salt Bay School or the Town Office.

“If we had had to pay for them it would have been over a hundred thousand dollars,” Hartung said. “And we got them, essentially, for free, for just the cost of transporting them here.”

Hartung is hopeful that other agencies, especially those towns that have no backup generators at gas stations in the towns, will request and obtain emergency generators. “All of the fire stations have backup generators,” he said, “and they can serve as shelters for people who are really stuck, but it would be better if there were better choices for people.” He mentioned a church in Waldoboro, and one in Boothbay Harbor, as well as the Wiscasset Community Center, as being possible shelter sites.

There is money in Lincoln County's Homeland Security grant for hookups for shelters, so that one of the emergency generators could be hooked up quickly and easily.

But the generator, and the gas to power it, has to be available.

“People get complacent when we’ve had a winter like the last one,” Hartung said. “Now it’s warm and sunny, and nobody thinks about it again until we’re looking at a major storm or an emergency.

“There’s an old Chinese saying. The best time to plant a garden is yesterday. The second best time to plant a garden is today. We need to be preparing today for what might come down the road tomorrow.”