With Acadia preparing to open, Bar Harbor wonders if visitors will come

As Acadia National Park prepares to begin a gradual reopening on June 1, businesses and others in Bar Harbor are gearing up to address new community needs created by the pandemic.

Acadia plans to increase recreational access and services consistent with openings of Maine’s coastal state parks, according to a news release.

“We have closely aligned our operations with the state of Maine’s phased reopening,” Superintendent Kevin Schneider said in the release. “Our adapted operations will place the safety of our visitors, employees, local communities, and volunteers as the highest priority.”

But he cautioned visitors about what to expect.

“It’s important we recognize that this summer is not going to be like anything we’re used to at Acadia,” he said. “Our focus will be to provide basic access at the park, but it will be very different.”

Acadia attracts 3 million visitors in a typical year, but this has not been a typical year. 

In Bar Harbor over Memorial Day Weekend, the traditional start of the tourist season, the bulk of the town’s hotels and inns were closed. And the coronavirus crisis has decimated travel on the Maine Turnpike, as stay-at-home orders, quarantine requirements and business shutdowns have forced many Americans to keep their cars in the driveway.

“There’s’ so much uncertainty,” said Jeff Dobbs, chair of the Town Council. “The local businesses are scared.”

What's opening

Beginning June 1, Acadia will open access to the Park Loop Road and most associated restrooms. Park rangers will provide limited information services to the public in open-air tents outside of the Hulls Cove Visitor Center.

Acadia concessions plan to open the Jordan Pond House Restaurant for takeout, with tables provided inside and outside.  The Jordan Pond House Gift Shop and Cadillac Mountain Eco Store will also open.

The Thunder Hole Gift Shop will open at a later date. Carriages of Acadia at Wildwood Stables is expected to resume some services mid-June.

Beginning June 5, Acadia will open access to the carriage roads for pedestrian use. The carriage roads will open to equestrian and bicycle use after park personnel have cleared downed trees and washouts. 

The Sand Beach entrance station is scheduled to open by June 8 for credit card purchases. All other fee stations will remain closed at least through July 1. 

The Island Explorer bus service is indefinitely postponed. Park campgrounds will remain closed until at least July 1. The park will re-evaluate that date in the near future and may delay opening further.

Delayed operations

“We’re starting the season somewhat short-handed,” Schneider said during an online public forum Thursday night. 

Schneider was among nine panelists who convened to discuss Bar Harbor and COVID-19 and answer questions about health, school, municipal services, business and tourism.

Many of Acadia’s seasonal employees started work Sunday, and those from out-of-state are now in the mandatory 14-day quarantine, so they can’t begin for another week or two, he said. 

The park’s shutdown meant that carriage road crews were unable to begin their springtime work of clearing washouts and downed trees at their usual time, he noted. Once the carriage roads are cleared, work will begin in other areas, such as the access road to the popular Echo Lake beach.

Typically, the work done for spring reopening takes place in March, April and May, Schneider said. Park employees were under the shelter-in-place order for most of that time, so the spring reopening work began only in the  last couple of weeks. 

Schneider said the park is encouraging visitors to wear masks in the park if they can’t maintain social distance. Walking along Ocean Drive may offer enough space to maintain distance, he noted, but that’s not the case everywhere.

The decision to postpone Explorer service was made because it would be impossible to maintain physical distance on the buses, he said.

Staff will start putting up signs at trailheads and other areas in the park asking visitors to observe safety guidelines and also not take undue risks. 

Stationary parade

The town of Bar Harbor is also reopening its visitor-oriented amenities, said Town Manager Cornell Knight. Three of its four comfort stations opened after safety  procedures were implemented. The town’s parking-meter program starts June 1; he noted that, in order to avoid touching the meters, people could use a payment app on their phones. The town is working on placing picnic tables around town to for outdoor dining options. 

The police department, Knight said, reported it has received dozens of calls from people in Bar Harbor, on Mount Desert Island, and from al over the country with questions about restrictions in the governor’s reopening plan, including the use of masks and the 14-day quarantine.

The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce is considering alternative plans to celebrate the Fourth of July, said the chamber’s executive director, Alf Anderson. The traditional parade and fireworks have been canceled.

The chamber recently outlined a plan for a “stationary parade” that encourages businesses and residents to decorate their storefronts and lawns. The parade route, posted on the chamber’s website, would take in the sights by car or walking. 

An alternative idea for fireworks is in the works, but not ready to be disclosed yet.

“We’re trying to come up with an alternative evening event with safe distancing,” he said.

The chamber and Bar Harbor Town Council will discuss those ideas at the council’s next meeting on June 2.

Parklets

At its June 2 meeting, the town council will discuss various ideas to help the business community.

That includes taking over select parking spaces to create “parklets” to accommodate outdoor dining.

The town also received a request to close certain streets in order to expand outdoor distancing options. But the town’s public safety department indicated concern about blocking access to pubic safety vehicles, Knight said. 

The discussions come as people are wondering whether visitors will come at all. 

The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce as reported massive amounts of cancellations for June and guests have started cancelling their July and August reservations, as well.

Bar Harbor’s economy also depends on tour buses and cruise ships. With 199 cruise ships visits originally scheduled in 2020, all have been canceled through Aug. 31. Many in September and October are also canceled. Tour buses related to cruise ship excursions have canceled, said Knight.

The status of tour buses coming from out-of-state is unclear, said Anderson. However, if any come, it’s likely the figures will be considerably lower than they would be for an average year, due largely to many of them being filled with foreign travelers who can’t or might not be willing to travel to the U.S.

Tourist operations like Olli’s Trolley and Bar Harbor Whale Watch say on their websites that they plan to open with modified operation plans, such as reduced capacity.

Front-row seat

Bar Harbor’s Hannaford has had “a front-row seat to this thing,” said the supermarket's manager, Jay Boyce.

The chain implemented safety protocols, including Plexiglas, directional arrows, signage, masks, gloves and frequent sanitizing. Still, 13 employees decided to step away from their jobs, leaving eight to run the Bar Harbor store, he said. Some departments were closed because of the unknowns of how to operate. 

“Social distancing is not as easy to do as you think it is, especially when  you run a business,” Boyce said. “Hannaford decided to pause some programs until we figure out how to do this right and keep our associates and customers as safe as we can.”

The store implemented a capacity limit of 45 customers allowed in at any given time. Up to now, customer numbers are mostly below that, so the store hasn’t had to do an outside staging area, he said.

On average, the store is seeing 84 customers per hour, which is not a lot for the size of the building, he noted. Per-week transactions are down 40% from 15,000 to less than 8,000, he said. Customers have for the most part observed guidance to send only one person per family to shop.

However, as the weather gets warmer, he’s noticed that more people are entering the store in groups. His biggest concern moving forward, he said, is that, visiting families and groups will start to shop together as they have typically done in the past.

“We’ll see what happens when we do start go to get visitors,” he said. “But for the most part, the last month has been more manageable.”

From the supply chain perspective, meat is becoming tough to find and prices are going up, he noted.

“It will get better, but it will be a while,” he said.

Supporting the vulnerable

Healthy Acadia, headquartered in Bar Harbor and serving Washington and Hancock counties, has developed responses to the new emergency health needs of COVID-19, said the organization’s executive director, Elsie Flemings.

Healthy Acadia is a nonprofit community health organization working to address critical, locally defined health priorities.

For example, in partnership with Mount Desert Island Hospital, the organization created a “social call” system to support individuals who might be vulnerable because of the isolation they experience while staying at home more. The organization has a base of recovery coaches working in the organization’s substance use disorder program, who pivoted to create the social call system. The system was piloted at MDI Hospital and has since opened to the community, she said. 

The organization also ramped up its food security work in response to pressures on the food supply system, she said. The organization’s healthy-food access programs, in partnership with local food producers, have been around for a long time but have seen the number of people using them quadruple since the start of the pandemic, she said.

Hospital supply chain

MDI Hospital started planning its coronavirus response in February, said Chrissi Maguire, the hospital’s chief operating officer and senior vice president. 

Maguire will become the hospital’s new CEO on Jan. 1, 2021.

The hospital activated its incident command plan in March and established a screening pavilion outside of the building to provide testing for symptomatic patients. The hospital was able early on to procure full personal protective and testing equipment, including gowns, masks, gloves and swabs, she said. 

“As long as we can maintain our supply chain, we’ll continue to provide symptomatic testing,” she said.

The hospital also implemented asymptomatic testing at Birch Bay Retirement Village in Bar Harbor and, with Jackson Laboratory providing technical support, is looking at how to expand it to the broader community, she said. 

The hospital has screened over 525 individuals for COVID-19. Of those five tested positive. At that point, she noted, the Maine CDC takes over the case and performs contact tracing. 

The hospital has six ventilators, three ICU rooms and, in its emergency department, two COVID-19 prepared rooms.  

“Right now we’re prepared to take care of the level of the patients we’re seeing,” she said. 

An informal task force of key community stakeholders, including the hospital, park, JAX, Healthy Acadia, and town and chamber of commerce leaders, has been working to develop broad strategies to support testing, food security, the business community and overall needs among Mount Desert Island communities.