Posted on 03/09/2013 8:23:33 AM PST by GQuagmire
`End of Plum Island' Nerves on edge as storm waters rising March 9, 2013 PrintEmail 52 Comments By Erin Smith / Boston Herald View My Profile
By Joe Dwinell / Boston Herald @joedwinell View My Profile By Matt Stout / Boston Herald View My Profile 123 114 googleplus4 reddit3
Battered by two monster storms in a month, desperate Plum Island residents are losing their battle with the wind and the waves and ultimately face watching their homes wash out to sea, a top expert told the Herald.
“This is the end of Plum Island,” Orrin H. Pilkey, Duke University professor emeritus of earth and ocean sciences, said last night. “If nothing is done, the houses will fall into the sea one by one. It’s a futile effort. You need to retreat. It’s the same thing up and down the East Coast and Gulf Coast.”
One Plum Island home toppled into the ocean and another was teetering on the edge of the waves yesterday, according to Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” said Judge of the other house falling into the ocean.
About a dozen homes on Plum Island have been damaged — some beyond repair, said Judge. A two-alarm fire was reported at a home on the 11-mile-long barrier island shared by Newburyport, Rowley and Ipswich on the North Shore.
Pilkey said only drastic and expensive measures, which are likely impractical, will end the threat to the ocean-front homes on Plum Island. The beach will survive, he added, but the homes won’t.
“When you have a bunch of storms like this, there’s not much you can do about it,” said Ron Barrett of the Plum Island Taxpayers Association. “Whatever is coming in at that time is going to eat that sand away, and anything else that is there. There’s nothing to block it, there’s no sand bar in the way to block it. It’s just a reoccurring thing.”
Beaches and dunes in Newbury, Plymouth, Salisbury, Sandwich and the rest of Cape Cod were also damaged yesterday by 20-foot waves, widespread erosion and storm surges as the latest winter storm hit the coast, said Bruce Carlisle, director of state’s Coastal Zone Management.
“Each successive storm has had cumulative impacts. This March nor’easter has definitely left its mark,” Carlisle said. “When people go out to the beach — whether it’s tomorrow or Memorial Day — it’s going to look different.”
Sea foam was breaching the dunes on the Cape yesterday, according to George Price, superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore, which saw last month’s blizzard wash away the stairs at Marconi and Nauset Light beaches.
“We’re trying to keep people back from the edges because naturally they’re curious and want to look down. Unfortunately the bluffs have been undercut by the waves and are not stable,” Price said.
Judge said officials in Marshfield made a handful of rescues as flood waters moved in.
In Scituate, town administrator Patricia A. Vinchesi said conditions began to “deteriorate” by yesterday morning, with flooding hitting spots officials didn’t expect. It was so bad in Humarock, she said, two cars were trapped, with one floating in the street, she said.
“The flooding,” Vinchesi said, “is pretty severe.”
Uh oh. Cue creepy music, and watch out for hordes of humanoid fish-frogs wading ashore toward Innsmouth. / H.P Lovecraft reference, for the unread. ;)
Sorry..no sympathy at all.If you choose to live on,or near,the ocean you must acknowledge that there are potential drawbacks,even serious ones.I don’t care if we’re talking Hawaii,California,Florida,New Jersey or Massachusetts.You chose to live there...deal with it!
The answer is very simple...Build back away from the shoreline.....
Exactly right....Use common sense when you build....
Or build and live on a boat.
What a pesemistic asshole... But why are they building homes on a barrier island in the first place?
Like I said, I feel somewhat bad for them. If they want to throw their own money at a losing proposition they can knock themselves out trying to postpone the inevitable.
If they ask for any help from the govt forget it. They’re on their own
How can you feel “bad” for ignorant, and/or egotistical people such as these???
It’s all about man thinking he can control nature....
Look at a globe and see how the continents sort of fit into each other if you smoosh them together. At one point, we used to be all one continent. But not anymore.
Over the next millions, billions of years even, our continents will be bumping into each other again, causing all sorts of annoyances for those still living on land masses. You might be able to step off the Aleutians and onto Hawaii - but Hawaii won't be warm anymore. If you own vacation property on Hawaii, you will eventually be screwed - about 2.3 billion years from now. I advise you to sell now.
They seemed to have a good fix for Grand Ise in Louisiana.
I like what Larry, the Cable Guy said....
Look how smart the republicans are....They built a city below sea level and surrounded it with dikes that were built by the lowest bidder and inhabited the city with democrats who can’t swim....(New Orleans)
Plum Island.
Sure hope they’ve cleaned up all the level4 containments before running away.
****Sorry..no sympathy at all.If you choose to live on,or near,the ocean you must acknowledge that there are potential drawbacks,even serious ones.****
I would be interested in knowing what kind of property taxes they have been paying over their lifetimes - and why that money was not used to build sea-walls and protective dunes.
Actually, we don’t let just anybody build whatever they want in the ocean along the shore.
Agreed. If you build within five miles of the shoreline you deserve what ever you get.
Mother Nature is not to be messed with. She ALWAYS wins. She has lots of time on her side. We are puny to her.
When I saw the title of the article, I thought of the other Plum Island, the one off Long Island. You definitely don’t want what’s on that Plum Island washing out to sea. Great book by Nelson DeMille.
I want to build my house on the San Andreas Fault. No, not near... I want it on the fault with the living room and kitchen on the North American plate and the bedrooms on the Pacific plate. And I expect the federal government will pay to rebuild my house if anything goes wrong.
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