The January 1944 Storm
This shot may date to the January 1944 storm; it's at least wartime. It looks south on Boothbay Harbor's Townsend Avenue after a strong northeaster, as seen by the snow plastered to the trees and phone poles. It's hard to tell how high the packed snow is, but the fire alarm box looks pretty low on the pole. Robert Rice noted the 1939 Ford has its grille covered to retain more heat and still has wartime blackout headlights.
This shot may date to the January 1944 storm; it's at least wartime. It looks south on Boothbay Harbor's Townsend Avenue after a strong northeaster, as seen by the snow plastered to the trees and phone poles. It's hard to tell how high the packed snow is, but the fire alarm box looks pretty low on the pole. Robert Rice noted the 1939 Ford has its grille covered to retain more heat and still has wartime blackout headlights.
I've been a snow lover all my life, so I regret the lack of it this winter of 2023-2024. I wrote this article back in 2014, in case readers question plow trucks’ horsepower. Back in January 1944, Boothbay people were probably feeling far from regretful—probably more like bitter longing for the snow to be gone.
Region Cut Off
On January 6, 1944, rain turned to heavy snow during the night and then to dry snow as the temperature dropped. During the week of and after the northeaster, the temperature ranged from 8 degrees to 32 below. With the increasing ferocity of the storm, the wind picked up and drove the snow into four-foot drifts. The storm continued through January 7. Though only 15 to 18 inches fell, the drifting cut the region off from the world. Goudy & Stevens shipyard burned nearly flat a few days after the worst of the storm. Part owner J. Arthur (Tunk) Stevens called his brother Jim, who was supervising a Camden shipyard, to come home because of the fire. Jim headed down on the 14th or 15th but had to turn back from the River Road, still not plowed.
The storm was tough on the plows. The heavy, wet snow was nearly immovable and parts of the region, such as Southport, the Center, East Boothbay, and the Harbor, were cut off from each other for a couple of days. Cars and trucks were abandoned on the roads and streets. Even as the main roads became drivable, the side roads remained impassable.
Plowing
I wondered what the typical plow trucks' horsepower was back then and what it was now (2014). Robert Rice told me that trucks of that 1940s era ran 90 to 100 horsepower. That 1940s era of trucks stopped in February 1942 since no commercial cars or trucks were built from a few months into 1942 to the beginning of 1945. All manufacturing went to the war effort. I called Tony Goode of the Boothbay town crew to ask him the horsepower of the big Boothbay trucks that they used to plow snow now; he said about 300 to 325 horsepower. You can see it would have been a struggle for the 1940s plows.
Up to 1947, Boothbay had road commissioners for the east, middle, and west parts of town; those men used their own trucks to plow the roads. The trucks, underpowered by present standards, had to plow fairly constantly during a heavy snowfall to prevent the snow's depth from exceeding the trucks' ability. Lermond Giles was commissioner on the east side of town from 1937 to 1947. When he and his crew that drove or sanded for him took a break, they'd all go to Lermond's house and nap on the floor for an hour or two until they had to get back at it. Robert Rice remembers Lermond plowing Murray Hill Road in East Boothbay in those years, with Alvah Webber standing on the flatbed shoveling sand onto the road as they passed. Robert and his friends would holler and shake their fists at the ruination of their sledding.
Local Conditions
During the January 1944 storm, schools were shut, but youngsters had a gold mine in shoveling jobs. Shipyards, normally busy with war work for 100s of men, were manned by only those who could walk to work. Power and phone service survived, but no mail could be carried by truck, so the Coast Guard took the outgoing and got the incoming by taking a boat to Wiscasset. For West Southport, it was the first time in 25 years the mail hadn't left the post office.
Jerry Hyson mentioned the January 1944 storm to me years ago, wondering if we had any photos of it. During it, he'd delivered milk on foot for Chesebro's Dairy down those impassable side roads in East Boothbay. Milkman Claude Miller at West Harbor broke his record of 12,775 consecutive days of milk delivery in his Model T truck, now at the Railway Village. On the east side of the Harbor, groceries from Brewer's Market were delivered by dog team, while Dr. Gregory used a horse and sleigh in Boothbay Harbor to reach many of his patients.
The storm returned the region to a pre-industrial time, when mail went by steamer and people walked or used animals to help with loads. While an unusual storm, most of the residents had grown up under pre-industrial conditions and knew almost instinctively how to step back to an earlier time.
