We had quite a storm here at the end of last month.
We returned today from Aguas Dulces. I normally don’t like to post lots of photos, but I think in this case they will help you appreciate its aftermath.
From our friends’ deck. The lower right was their front yard.
Neighbor on the left: front third of house gone.
Neighbor on the right: no house anymore.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Meet your new front yard.
People scurrying in and out — salvaging furniture?
Meet your new front yard.
Meet your new front yard.
Gone.
Meet your new front yard.
Meet your new front yard. Feel lucky.
No doubt a lot of people feeling this way. But dunes are built by wind and waves, moved and removed by winds and waves, and wind and waves have little regard for your desire to live with a view of wind and waves.
Meanwhile, the local “council” has suspended rubble cleanup after a court order. Seems they felt they could take into their own hands the destruction and removal of private buildings (on public land — ah, complicated).
The last big storm was 31 December, 1988. Expected storm surge is up to three meters. In this storm it was five meters above normal sea level.
Design Notebook
On a lighter note, some imaginative decorations of other buildings in Aquas Dulces.
The door on the right says NO ESTACIONAR — NO PARKING 😉
Sad but expected. Don’t understand why folks continue to build on dunes … dreaming? Finding it hard to even say “oh, sorry”.
Your family and ours switched July-August in Quogue at Hazie’s, I think. In 1960 (Hurricane Donna aftermath?) ClaytFam did an excursion in The Motorboat with its 35 hp Evinrude engine, scouting Quantuck Bay, highlight of which was circumnavigating a three-story shingle-style cottage that had been wrested from the dunes to end up half-submerged at an angle, relatively intact, in the middle of the bay, many hundreds of meters away. Quite awesome.
I think that same hurricane tore a new inlet into the bay through the dunes as well?