The Maine Floods of 1987

• Main Author: Dale D. Rowley
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.492.4547; http://www.uninets.net/~dsrowley/The Flood of 1987.pdf

Some disasters strike without warning, while others creep up on unsuspecting and unprepared communities. In late March and early April of 1987, the worst flood in Maine’s modern history was one of those events that crept up on the people of Maine. While some public safety and emergency preparedness managers watched with concern during the Spring of 1987, most people of Maine, known as Mainers, were oblivious to the danger as the floodwaters started to rise. However, they received a wakeup call, as the waters started to flow over the embankments of numerous rivers in the State. Maine is located in the most northeastern section of the United States and shares an international boundary with the Canadian providences of Quebec and New Brunswick. The climate of Maine is dominated by three primary air masses. “These are the polar continental, which are cold, dry air masses originating in Canada and Arctic areas; tropical maritime, which are warm, moist air masses originating in the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent subtropical water of the Atlantic Ocean; and polar maritime, which are cool, damp air masses from the North Atlantic. Land-recycled moisture is also an important source of moisture because it supplements the major sources of moisture with evaporation from lakes and reservoirs and from the land