MINOT – With her five-year-old daughter, Stephanie Edwards was driving on Route 119 Saturday afternoon during a heavy rainstorm when things went wrong.

“The road fell out beneath me,” she later recalled.

Edwards and others were stuck in a string of “vigorous” thunderstorms, complete with heavy rains, hail and wind. The rain fell so hard so fast that it prompted flash flooding that washed out big chunks of routes 119 and 124. That led the Maine Department of Transportation to close both roads until further notice.

Nearby smaller roads are strewn with heavy dirt and mud and rocks.

Parts of the highways – including a bridge – were sunk, eroded away, broken or simply gone. Other sections of the roads are twisted, and feature gaping holes. Along both roads, many homeowners’ driveways were washed out. The only traffic allowed on the roads were police, MDOT crews, and four-wheelers.

Despite the damage no one was injured, according to the Androscoggin Sheriff’s Department.

But people were shook up.

When she was in her car Edwards noticed Route 119 was covered with water, “but everybody kept going. By the time I realized what was going on I had gotten too far down in. The road washed out.”

She picked up her daughter, Ashleigh, and climbed out of her vehicle to head for safety. The water was high. It went to her waist. She was afraid.

“I was crying, crying very hard,” Edwards said. “When you’re walking in water totally against you, and you have a 60-pound child hooked to your chest crying, it was hard.”

Barbara Bernier, 83, lives on Route 119. Standing in her front yard Saturday afternoon, she was a bit stunned by what she had seen.

“I’ve never saw anything like this. I came here in 1959.” During the storm “I was scared to death.” Her house if fine. It sits back a ways from the highway. Had it been closer, “it would have been gone,” Bernier said. “It was just like a river. It was just like someone opened up a dam. The road was covered with water.”

Near the center of town there’s a huge hole where a bridge stood earlier on Saturday.

Before the bridge went away, Bud Santos of Minot said water was coming through the center of town like nothing he’s ever seen.

“Water was pouring right across the town square. You couldn’t see the town square.” It was under water. “We didn’t know where it was coming from. It just tore through the town and kept coming and coming and coming. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Everyone had the same question, he said. “Where’s all the water coming from?”

According to the National Weather Service, Minot was unlucky.

It was the victim of “a series” of slow-moving, “vigorous thunderstorms,” said meteorologist Steve Capriola. “Sometimes the heaviest rain gets more localized. That’s why you can get those situations.”

It will be days, at least, before the state roads are repaired and reopened, state DOT Deputy Commissioner Greg Nadeau said Saturday night.

“Based on the reports I got from our folks in the field, the damage sounds pretty sizable,” Nadeau said. Besides losing a bridge and highway, a huge culvert was lost. “That leaves a pretty big hole,” Nadeau said. “Crews are out in the field. Our folks will be helping the traveling public find reasonable alternatives to keep the traffic going.”

MDOT will also be working with local officials to help routes 119 and 124 residents so they aren’t stranded.

Denise Foss, who lives in Route 124, lost her back yard.

Earlier Saturday her yard was attractively landscaped with trees, grass and plants. By Saturday, night her yard was gone. A huge, ugly culvert was exposed. The road above the culvert gone.

When Foss opened her kitchen door to her deck, the roar of water filled her room. Rocks coming through the culvert made banging noises as they were forced through with the current. What looked like a wild river ran through yard.

Before the storm the sun was shining, Foss said. She drove to Oxford to go shopping. When she came home water was flowing heavily around her house. “It was just like a river. I didn’t know if I dared to pull into the driveway,” Foss said. “It was coming so fast I couldn’t get out of my car at first.”

She photographed Route 124 in front of her home. She showed pictures of the road covered with water, but still there. The next pictures showed how the road was disappearing, and the culvert emerged as the land was washed away.

She and her husband, Brian, have lived there about 30 years. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” Foss said. “It was bad.”