On November 2, Pellerin said the county would be receiving $186,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to repair the damage caused by the flooding last month.

In this week's meeting Pellerin brought the bad news that the county would not be receiving anything from FEMA to help the towns that received damage to their roads.

"I am disheartened to say there will be no money coming to the county from FEMA because the state fell below the threshold for federal disaster assistance," Pellerin said. Although Lincoln County met their threshold, many other counties in the state did not receive the amount of damage Lincoln County did."

The news came in the form of an e-mail from Lynette Miller at the Maine Emergency Management Agency: "Unfortunately, the assessments that came in are less than the original estimates, dropping the state under the threshold for requesting federal disaster assistance. The Maine Department of Transportation-owned dam in Newcastle was assessed at far under the original estimate as well. That was the primary reason for the state as a whole dropping below the threshold." Towns in Lincoln County that reported damaged included: Edgecomb, $24,000; Boothbay, $14,000; Wiscasset $41,000; Bristol, $8,000; Wiscasset Water District, $2,000; Nobleboro, $9,000; Waldoboro, $10,000; Summerville, $39,000; Alna $4,000; Bremen, $9,000; Dresden, $20,000 and Monhegan, Island $3,000.

"I know this will leave a number of communities with substantial damage that it will be a hardship to repair," Miller said.

She said in the last legislative session, a Maine Disaster Trust Fund was created, but not funded.

"The next step is to obtain funding," she said. "This experience is a perfect example of when a state disaster assistance program could and should be used."

Pellerin told the commissioners he was going to encourage town officials to write to their representatives in support of this Maine trust fund.