BOSTON (AP) – A week after last month’s Nor’easter, the seas had finally calmed enough for Gloucester lobsterman Geoff Thomas to check the damage to his traps. He wasn’t expecting anything worse than what winter normally dishes out.

Thomas quickly learned he was wrong. Buoys on traps that were supposed to be hundreds of feet apart had been bunched next to each other. Many traps were simply gone. “When we finally got out there and saw what happened, it was total amazement,” Thomas said.

Thomas lost 250 of his 600 traps in the storm, which devastated lobstermen from Cape Cod Bay to the New Hampshire border. The storm swept up the coast but Maine lobstermen were not affected, officials said.

Last week, those lobstermen became eligible for up to $1.5 million each in low-rate federal loans after the U.S. Small Business Administration declared the storm a disaster.

Fishermen began applying for the loans this week at SBA workshops in ports around the state. Some, however, were stymied by a requirement that the money be used for unpaid bills or operating expenses, but not “physical losses,” such as traps.

Bill Adler of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association said the storm damage is the worst since the so-called “Perfect Storm” of 1991. The complications of getting a loan only push some fishermen closer to ruin, he said.

“The worst part about it is not being able to go to work,” Adler said. “They can’t do it if they don’t have the equipment.”

Lobster is the state’s second most valuable seafood: Its $56.7 million in revenues trailed only scallops in 2002, the most recent year statistics are available. But both the total catch and revenues have dropped since 2000, when lobster pulled in $67.5 million.

The Nor’easter, which hit between Dec. 6 and 8, was particularly hard on northern Massachusetts, where some coastal communities were pounded by waves and more than 30 inches of snow.

The rough water tumbled the traps along the ocean floor, balling them up in a tangled mess that either can’t be found, or are too heavy to be retrieved, Adler said. Other traps were knocked around and damaged beyond repair.

Adler added that because of an unusually late lobster season, caused by cool water temperatures in early summer, more lobstermen than usual hadn’t pulled their traps by December. He estimated 400 of the 940 lobstermen in the area were fishing when the storm hit.

One Scituate fisherman reported that all 450 of his traps were damaged in the storm, according to numbers submitted to the SBA by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. A Plymouth fisherman said 600 of 700 traps were damaged. A Gloucester fisherman reported damage to 500 of his 750 traps.

The trap damage led to catch declines ranging from 40 percent to a total loss, compared to last December, according to MEMA figures.

Maine lobster fishermen were largely unaffected. Most Maine lobstermen pull their traps from the water in November and December.

Storms also tend to hurt Massachusetts lobstermen more than their Maine counterparts. One of the key factors is the geology of the ocean floor, which is rocky in Maine but sandy in Massachusetts, said Dave Cousens of the Maine Lobsetermen’s Association.

A handful of lobstermen in southern York County, where the ocean floor is smooth and not rocky, did experience some problems. Among them: Pat White, chief executive officer of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

White, who is from York, said some of his traps were washed two miles away to waters off Kittery. He lost 20 traps altogether.

AP-ES-01-22-04 1336EST