After blizzard, oceanfront Massachusetts cleans up from flooding

MARSHFIELD, Mass. - Ocean Street in the waterfront Massachusetts town of Marshfield was littered with lobster traps, downed wires and chunks of houses on Wednesday, after a massive blizzard hammered New England.

Notably absent was much of the 2 feetof snow that blanketed much of the Boston area, since for much of the storm, Ocean Street was under water because of flooding from a breached sea wall. About a dozen homes were badly damaged.

"This area sees flooding regularly, but we haven't seen damage like this since the blizzard of '78," town planner Greg Guimond said as he surveyed the wreckage. "The problem was the sustained wave action; the houses can't handle it."

Much of the ocean-facing section of Marshfield remained without power on Wednesday, and homes were coated in ice. Residents who rode out the storm said they had relied on fireplaces to keep warm.

Further up the coast, Governor Charlie Baker met with officials in Scituate, which also reported flood damage and where roads were blocked by a mix of snow and water-borne debris that had blocked access to some homes without power.

Baker said he would order additional state heavy equipment into the region to help with cleanup.

"There is so much snow and other activity associated down here with that storm that their resources and their assets are pretty much flat out," Baker told reporters in Scituate.

Tim Mannix, whose Marshfield house was pounded by waves after the seawall failed, watched a front-end loader clear debris away from the front of the building. His face was badly bruised and marked by a long line of stitches above his nose after waves knocked a sliding glass door on him.

"Thankfully it was a fast-moving storm, just one tide," the 58-year-old fisherman said. "Imagine what it would have been like had it stayed around."

Millions across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York were digging out on Wednesday from the storm, which dumped up to 3 feet of snow in places, though it largely bypassed New York City.

Schools remained closed in Boston and throughout much of eastern Massachusetts on Wednesday, but the local transit system ramped back up.

Boston's airport resumed operations around 8 a.m. local time, but one in four departing flights had been canceled, according to FlightAware.com.

'WORSE AND WORSE'

As he surveyed the damage in Marshfield while walking his dog, 67-year-old Donny Boormeester said the storm was the worst he had experienced since moving to the town in 1969.

"Every year, the storms get worse and worse," the retired produce buyer said. "The water gets closer to the houses."

He said the streets near his home flooded twice a year in recent years, an estimate his neighbors agreed with.

"It used to be a novelty," Boormeester said.

Increased flooding is a problem up and down the New England coastline that has been exacerbated by rising sea levels, said Cameron Wake, director of the University of New Hampshire Climate Change Research Center.

"Places that used to not flood are getting flooded now and the reason is not because we didn't have hurricanes or Noreasters in the past," Wake said. "The reason is because sea level has risen and so for any given storm surge we've added an extra foot of sea on top of that. It doesn't make a big difference until we see a big storm and we see systems fail that haven't failed in the past."

Marshfield is looking for other ways to protect homes from flooding, including seeking Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to help raise other houses above potential floodwaters.

"We just had a meeting with FEMA on Thursday about elevation grants," Guimond said of the talks held last week.

FATALITIES ACROSS REGION

Further south, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut escaped the worst of the storm, despite dire predictions by meteorologists and officials. New York City's subway system restarted after being closed for 10 hours.

The severe weather claimed the lives of at least two people. Police in Trumbull, Connecticut, said an 80-year-old man collapsed while shoveling snow and died on Tuesday at a nearby hospital.

Police said a teenager died late on Monday when he crashed into a lamppost as he was snow-tubing in the New York City suburb of Suffolk County, on the east end of Long Island, which had more than 2 feet of snow in places.

New Yorkers were divided on whether Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had overreacted ahead of the storm. Cuomo had ordered a travel ban on all roads in the southern part of the state, while the subway system closed for the first time in history due to snow.