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NEWBURYPORT, Mass. — Last weekend’s crippling storm made it nearly impossible for some people to leave their homes. Worse yet, others learned they probably won’t have one to return to.
Battered and beaten by a succession of powerful oceanfront storms, Plum Island homeowner Thomas Nee said it was time to accept the fact that neither he nor his father could live along the waterfront any longer.
A surge tide brought a ferocious pounding surf that left five homes considered uninhabitable due to erosion damage over a several hundred yard stretch of Plum Island.
“I can’t stay here,” Nee said.
The storm surge on Saturday was devastating in many ways. “It’s absolute mayhem out there,” said Bob Connors at the height of the surge. “The water is coming right up to the houses.”
In his 33 years along Plum Island, he said he hadn’t seen the seas so high or rough. “It certainly is not a place to be going for curiosity-seekers.”
Along Salisbury Beach, which is north of Plum Island, Glenn Guilmette said he was standing near the windows Saturday morning when a wave smashed through the glass, throwing him off his feet and perhaps knocking him unconscious.
“Knocked me on my ass, good times,” Guilmette said.
He and his dog where sent sprawling into the kitchen and covered by a table.
Other homes in the beachfront area also sustained water damage but most dwellers had returned to their property later in the weekend and begun cleaning up.
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Details for this stroy were provided by the Newburypost, Mass., Daily News.
