CANTON – The first five homes in an overall flood buyout program that could eventually include more than 60 structures came down this week.
C.H. Stevenson of Wayne won the bid to tear down the homes, including some salvage rights.
During the past couple of weeks, people from throughout the area, following a bidding process, have been removing items from the doomed buildings, ranging from doors and windows, to roofing and other infrastructure.
Diane Ray, chairwoman of the Special Projects Committee, said about $5,000 was raised from the town’s unusual effort to offer ordinary people a chance to bid on items. She hopes that a sufficient amount of salvage money will be raised as additional homes are torn down to allow the purchase of one more house.
Two of the homes slated for removal, situated at 48 School St. and at the intersection of Pleasant and Cross streets, may be torn down early next year, or may be considered as suitable for relocating to the new village center. One is a former parsonage; the other had been owned by the Bragg family.
She said 20 homes in the flood plain have received buyout offers under the Flood Mitigation Program. Sixteen have accepted, and the committee is working with the remaining four.
Offers will be made on 10 more homes later this month, said Ray.
Most of the homes targeted under the buyout program are on the Pleasant Street section of Route 108 and School Street.
Significant portions of the town have been flooded by high waters off and on for years. The rains of Dec. 18 and Dec. 19, 2003, caused more than $2 million in damage from the rising waters of the Androscoggin River and Whitney Brook and prompted the evacuation of many families.
Just before the most recent flood, the town’s Comprehensive Plan Committee had begun working on possibly moving the village to higher ground.
Following the 2003 flood and the receipt of several million dollars in federal and state money, work began in earnest to buy out homeowners in the flood plain and to relocate the village.
Ray said Gov. John Baldacci is expected to visit the town Dec. 20 to help mark the second anniversary of the flood, and to see what steps the town has taken so far.
She said she expects work to begin on a new village center sometime in 2006. The town is considering the purchase of about 22 acres about three-tenths of a mile north of the current village center off the Edmunds Road.
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