Priest helps neighbors find shelter I was a priest at St. Matthew's Church in Hallowell during the flood. First signs were trucks loading everything everywhere on Route 201 and then the rising water. It was fun at first, people canoeing on 201, etc. and then it got serious. One current of water came in by the bandstand and exited by Paperkicks, tearing off the siding.

I tried to get an elderly couple to move out of their apartment in the Cotton Mill by the end at 201. St. Matthew's started taking in people as we had showers and places to sleep and ended up with about eight people staying there until they could move back home.

One guy from Bond Street came but I made him leave his whiskey outside. The water got to the middle of the first block of Union Street and covered Gardiner Savings and Fido's. Railroad ties being sold at the nursery by the present Lucky Garden floated downstream and the water kept rising and things got scary.

People would walk along Second Street looking to see what the water was doing and how far up it was coming. Finally it receded but it seemed to take a long time doing so. The trucks came back, people moved into their stores and life went on, but it certainly was the worst flood I have ever seen and I have seen several.

The Rev. Nancy Van Dyke Platt

Nplatto@aol.com