By Angeljean Chiaramida
Mother Nature took another lash at the coast yesterday, as an abnormally high tide flooded parts of Newburyport's waterfront, sent waves spilling over Broadway in Salisbury Beach Center and surged over low-lying coastal roads.
Cashman Park in Newburyport, the parking lots at Ferraz Shawmut and the Black Cow Restaurant, and low sections of Water Street were inundated with debris-filled water surging from the Merrimack River. The full moon tide, coupled with an already swollen Merrimack, brought about an unusually high watermark around noon. No significant damage was reported.
Yesterday's high tide brought waves crashing over the beach at the end of Broadway, Salisbury Beach's main thoroughfare, then overflowed the surrounding marshland to invade the beach parking lot, close off parts of Beach Road, and surround homes on 10th and 11th streets.
Along flood-prone Bridge Road in Salisbury as the tidal Merrimack River swelled around noon, Town Creek overflowed into the parking lots of Hudson's, Dave's Fish Market and Gordon's Sew and Vac Center. Neither the roadway itself, nor businesses on the east side of the road, experienced flooding as during the Patriots Day storm in 2007, but water filled Hudson's parking lot right up to the road's edge.
"The tide gate (on the trestle over Town Creek) isn't broken; we have video to prove that," Salisbury Emergency Management director Bob Cook said yesterday. "What happens there is that when you get one very high tide after another, like we've been having, because there's only one culvert there, the water doesn't have a chance to get out between tides. The town's in the process of applying for federal funds to fix that."
Federal money is also committed to fix the constant flooding along the west side of North End Boulevard, where high tides send the Blackwater River backing up along the marshes, invading homes and neighborhoods along many roads there, such as 10th and 11th streets.
Torn roof shingles still litter North End Boulevard, and buildings show gaps from torn siding from the high winds that accompanied Thursday night's storm. Cook said the Center and south end of the beach experienced moderate erosion from the winds, storm surge and heavy rains.
"The north end of the beach didn't experience much of a problem," Cook said. "Most of the erosion is at the south and center of the beach. We're going to do a survey on Thursday to assess the damage."
Cook said statewide communities were assessing their condition after the storm battered the coastline, toppled trees, downed electrical wiring and cut off service to thousands. Communities were to share their information with state authorities at 2 p.m. yesterday, so state officials could determine what their next move might be, Cook said.
Throughout the region, National Grid, Verizon and Massachusetts Highway Department crews could be seen driving up and down the highways, fixing downed lines and determining the conditions of roadways. By yesterday, Cook said most of the power had been restored throughout town, except for a few isolated cases.
The largest area still without power yesterday was in Newbury, around the Lower Common and High Road. The area suffered severe damage from wind damage that felled many large trees, in some places ripping down swaths of trees.
Although Salisbury's wastewater treatment facility had to be run via generators until mid-Saturday because of power loss, no major damage occurred to town facilities, he said.
However, snapped tree limbs and uprooted trees throughout town not only filled the air with the smell of pine, but will probably soon provide a heavy request for burn permits as residents try to clean up the remnants of a wild few days along the Salisbury coast, Cook said.
