Residents in a small cottage community of Maine were so fed up with the delays from a road construction project that they sent the DOT workers to the graveyard shift. Figuratively, of course, and all in the spirt of Halloween.
However, at least one construction worker has said the display is offensive.
The Portland Press Herald reported that Ogunquit residents have put up an elaborate construction Halloween display right on the main stretch for all visitors to see. A large orange constructions sign reads “Road workers dead ahead” above a protruding skull and crossbones. That’s only the intro to the display, though. Skeletons wearing construction safety vests are operating a backhoe near where a trolley has gone off the rails into a hole.
Behind a zombified construction worker is a sign that changes the meaning of DOT from Department of “Transportation to Disrupt Ogunquit Traffic” next to “Project #019106.” Project 019106 just so happens to refer to a 2.3-mile, $13.5 million road project that has been a headache for area drivers.
For the most part, the Maine Department of Transportation workers who have seen it, as well as the residents, take the display in jest and can see the humor. Drivers of construction trucks have even honked as they passed by the display.
“I think it’s perfectly fine,” MDOT worker on the Ogunquit project Mike Gowen. “I thought it was pretty funny.”
But WMTW TV said they received a letter from a construction worker who said the display was in poor taste. WMTW reported that the woman said she had “never been so utterly disgusted,” and went on to say that the “disrespectful” display might be painful to see for anyone who has lost friends or family in a construction accident.
But the owner of the land where the haunted road work is on display, Ginger Littlefield, said it wasn’t meant to offend anyone.
“It’s all done in good fun,” she said. “It’s Halloween.”
