Two Years After Storm Damage and with Funding Secured, Seawall Road Still Awaits Permanent Repairs.

Carrie Jones

May 08, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.

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SOUTHWEST HARBOR—When the Seawall Road might receive a permanent fix is still a bit up in the air.

After months of closure due to powerful winter storms that decimated the Seawall Road, six local contractors took the rebuilding of the beloved road into their own hands back in 2024.

It was meant to be a temporary fix.

It only happened because the state agreed to let those local businesses voluntarily do that temporary fix to get the road—beloved by MDI residents and tourists—back in working order.

Those community fixes to the looping road which joins Southwest Harbor to Tremont and also to Acadia National Park’s Seawall Campground, Ship Harbor Trail, and Wonderland Trail have always been considered temporary.

Since then, there’s been back and forth between the town, Park, and MaineDOT about how to pay for permanent repairs and upkeep.

It’s been two years.

There is federal money to fix it, but the road itself has still not undergone repairs despite the rapidly approaching tourism season.

In June 2025, Acadia National Park received “supplemental funding from Congress to fund storm-related damages and is working with the state to fully fund the resiliency improvements at Seawall Road,” Southwest Harbor Town Manager Karen Reddersen wrote in her manager’s report at the time.

The park and the state have agreed that the funding would pay for the estimated $1.45 million project. This means the state or the Town of Southwest Harbor do not have to contribute to the less temporary fix of the 1,500 feet of road that runs next to Seawall Pond and the ocean.

For a while, the issue was getting the funds to the proper place so the work can happen.

“As you know, we have set up an agreement with MDOT to reconstruct 1500 feet, and place the culvert in this area we know about,” Acadia National Park Management Assistant John T. Kelly said in March. “The agreement’s in place. Funding’s in place. Everything’s in place but for our financial assistance office is unable for some technical reason to be able to put the announcement into Grant Solutions so that the state can submit an application that’s done to issue the notice of award. We’ve been on this for weeks and it’s obviously getting pretty tight to get work done before July.”

Kelly said the park has done everything they can.

The glitch has now been fixed.

Back in March, Reddersen had asked what the drop-dead time frame would be before the work is moved to the fall.

That was unknown and would depend on the bidding process, availability of contractors, and other factors such as ground temperature.

It is still unknown.

“MaineDOT and the National Park Service are in the process of completing plans and we appreciate the continued collaboration between our teams to move this project forward,” Andrew Gobeil, MaineDOT communications director told the Bangor Daily News. “We’ll provide additional updates as the agreement is finalized and the construction schedule is confirmed.”

An earlier plan had anticipated the work to be done by this June.