A coastal community in the northeast is reeling, following mother nature’s fury.
The residents of Salisbury Beach, a seaside neighborhood in Massachusetts, recently banded together to barricade their homes from this season’s high surf and storms.
However, after raising over $500,000 to protect their homes from the incoming waves and water, the residents were back where they started. The manmade sand dunes were destroyed in just three days.
“People are depressed, discouraged, angry,” Tom Saab, president of Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change, the organization which led the sand dune effort, told The New York Times. “The dunes did their job. They sacrificed themselves to protect the properties—no properties were really damaged.”
Saab continued:
“Everybody had beautiful dunes, all paid for out of their own pockets—not a penny from the State of Massachusetts at all. We built this one and a half miles of beach ready to protect us.”
Related: Sneaker Wave Sweeps Away Surf Spectators at Massive Mavericks (VIDEO)
It’s not just this small community in the northeast; it’s been a destructive winter season on both coasts in terms of coastal infrastructure damage. Primarily, on the west coast, the historic swell of December 28th brought massive waves and loads of wreckage.
Like in Capitola, where waves toppled over the pier and swept a woman out to sea; then down south in Ocean Beach, where waves caused irreparable damage to the pier; and the Cardiff Reef carpark was also destroyed.
Related: Iconic San Onofre Beach Parking Lot Destroyed by Historic Storms
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too, when it comes to coastal erosion chaos this season. One of the biggest events, for the surfing community at least, has been the loss of the iconic parking lot at San Onofre State Beach. However, some good news there, as it looks like repairs are set to begin soon, with a potential reopening on April 1st.
As for the community in Massachusetts, struggling to save their homes on their own dime, a longtime resident had just one word for the situation:
“Catastrophic.”
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