Earth Support Corp

Hancock CountyMaine

Mount Desert, Maine

Bedrock sits a median 6 ft down across 436 logs, shallower than the Maine median of 15 ft. 1 of its 6 inventoried bridges is rated poor (17%, against 15% statewide).

Median depth to bedrock

6 ft

middle half 4–15 ft · 436 logs

Bridges rated poor

1

of 6 inventoried

Mapped landslides

1

USGS inventory points

FEMA repair $, Hancock County

$12.7M

federal share since 2010 · county-wide

01 · Ground

Rock is close to the surface: 70% of logs hit it within 10 ft

From 436 depth-to-rock records inside Mount Desert (Maine Geological Survey wells database). Logs cluster where people drill wells and bore for roads, so treat this as the town’s pattern, not a site answer.

Half of Mount Desert's logs reach rock between 4 and 15 ft

Depth to bedrock: 10th–90th percentile whisker, middle-half box, median tick; dashed line = Maine median.
median 6 ft
ME 15 ft
0102030 ft
0501001500–5 ft5–10 ft10–20 ft20–50 ft50–100 ft100+ ft
n = 436 logsSource: Maine Geological Survey wells database
▸ Show the numbers
Depth to rock (ft)Logs
0–5141
5–10145
10–2072
20–5056
50–10021
100+1

Rock within 10 ft

70%

of logs (40% across Maine). Shallow rock means ledge in excavations, refusal for driven piles and rock anchors rather than soil nails; deep ground means taller shoring and more groundwater. 3% of logs here go past 50 ft.

Mapped landslides

1

1 rotational slide/slump. Inventory points from the USGS U.S. Landslide Inventory; many are prehistoric slides mapped from lidar.

02 · Bridges

1 of 6 bridges are rated poor — about the same as the Maine rate of 15%

Every highway bridge and large culvert in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory that stands inside Mount Desert. Median age 78 years.

33% good, 17% poor

FHWA good / fair / poor rating — the lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert.
  • Good2 · 33%
  • Fair3 · 50%
  • Poor1 · 17%
n = 6 structuresSource: FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025
▸ Show the numbers
BuiltStructures
1920s1
1930s2
1950s1
1970s1
2010s1

The poor-rated bridges

Bridges rated poor in Mount Desert
CarriesOverBuiltDaily traffic
PEABODY DRLITTLE HARBOR BROOK19782,688
Every poor bridge in New England

03 · Dams & disasters

Hancock County has drawn $12.7M in federal disaster repair since 2010

FEMA Public Assistance is reported by county, so the figure below is Hancock County-wide context, not a Mount Desert number.

FEMA Public Assistance, Hancock County

$12.7M

Federal share obligated across 166 projects in 5 declared disasters since 2010. The largest category is emergency protective measures (52%); roads & bridges took $3.0M.
Dams, disasters & moving ground

04 · Next door

Mount Desert and the 3 towns that border it

A dash means no data for that layer, not zero.
Mount Desert compared with neighbouring towns
TownPoor bridgesRock depth
Mount Desert, ME1 / 66 ft
Bar Harbor, ME1 / 96 ft
Tremont, ME0 / 45 ft
Southwest Harbor, ME8 ft

Where these numbers come from

Method, sources & caveats

Mount Desert is the Census county subdivision 2300947630 (Hancock County). Every record is placed here by its coordinates, not by the place name the source uses.

  • Towns are Census county subdivisions: cities, towns, plantations, and Maine/New Hampshire unorganized territories and townships. Every record is placed in a town by its coordinates (point-in-polygon), not by the source's own place label — so a bridge in Roxbury counts for Boston and a well in 'North Waltham' counts for Waltham.
  • Bridges: FHWA NBI 2025, highway structures ≥ 20 ft including large culverts. 'Poor' is FHWA's good/fair/poor rating (lowest of deck, superstructure, substructure or culvert ≤ 4). Percent-poor is shown only for towns with at least 5 structures.
  • Depth to bedrock is the median of driller- and boring-reported depths in the town, shown only where at least 10 logs exist. Water-well logs over-sample rural lots and hilltops; one town median never describes a particular site.
  • Bedrock depths use the same state databases and filters as the Bedrock & soils module (bedrock wells and borings that reached rock, 0 < depth ≤ 400 ft, exact re-filings dropped), but every log is placed in a town by its coordinates rather than the driller's town field, so town counts can differ slightly between the two pages. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no statewide public well-log database with depths.
  • Dams: only high-hazard-potential dams whose latest condition assessment is Poor or Unsatisfactory are counted (live NID). Connecticut and Rhode Island assessments may lag.
  • FEMA Public Assistance dollars are federal share obligated for disasters declared since 2010, reported by county — they are county context, not a town figure.
  • Grant awards are Massachusetts only (EEA Dam & Seawall program, MVP Action grants, CZM Coastal Resilience). Other states' programs are not yet included.
  • Ground-related permit counts cover only the municipal portals the pipeline reads (Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Worcester, Framingham, Providence, Portsmouth, Hartford and a few others) — an absent count means 'not covered', not zero.
Data as of
Sep 11, 2026
Generated
Sep 11, 2026
Records
367,748
Refresh
Live pull · weekly

Published by Earth Support Corp as a public resource. Regional statistics for planning and curiosity. They are not an engineering report, a bid recommendation or a statement about any particular site, firm or project. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it. Full method: methodology.

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