This issue of our print edition has to make its way across a vicious chop in the Vineyard Sound amid serious warnings that a nor’easter is gathering force and about to slam the Island, bringing not only powerful winds and surging tides but also inland flooding, which is often caused on Vineyard roads by a lack of runoff.
The delivery of the paper is just a glimpse of the challenges we all face when big storms head our way and transportation is disrupted. We are humbled to realize how dependent on weather we all are. And one place where that is felt acutely is at Five Corners, where our newsroom is located on Beach Road. We watch the huge pond that forms at Five Corners with just about any storm, and which can pose a true danger to the Island with heavy rains like the forecast predicts for this weekend. We watch cars and trucks stall out in the deep puddles that form; we have watched ambulances and fire trucks having to be rerouted. One year, we even saw an Islander traversing flooded Five Corners in a kayak!
So the question is, Where are our town officials and where is the State Department of Transportation on the promise to fix Beach Road and the intersection at Five Corners, which is a critical thoroughfare that connects the ferry terminal in Vineyard Haven to the hospital in Oak Bluffs? Warnings have been issued for many years that this is a critical problem for critical infrastructure that severely disrupts traffic across the Island, and threatens lives.
As we have been covering in print and will continue updating in our online edition, this storm is expected to arrive with powerful winds, currently forecast by the National Weather Service to blow gusts 44 mph at their strongest, and heavy rain. That, a Norton meteorologist told us, could bring coastal flooding, beach erosion, tree damage, and potential power outages.
Nor’easters are nothing new for the Island, but this year is different. The global weather system is experiencing something called a “super El Niño,” a phenomenon caused by a temporary rise in surface water temperature in the Pacific by 5° Fahrenheit. It leads to a more active storm season in the Pacific, but provides the Atlantic with a so-called shield from hurricanes because of rerouted jet streams. In exchange, New England is expected to get a lot of rain, and whenever that happens, Five Corners becomes a flooded chokepoint that drastically reduces travel, or forces police to redirect drivers in other directions.
But the forecast of this global weather phenomenon could give us a foretaste of the future.
A June 2025 Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) report highlighted Beach Road and Five Corners as areas that need infrastructural improvements in the face of rising sea levels and expectations of more intense storms. As of now, the study states, Five Corners could see near-daily flooding. That may not be what we see with the super El Niño–spurred increase in rain, but we could be seeing more traffic disruptions this year.
We understand infrastructure projects take time. John Goggin, MassDOT spokesperson, told The Times in July that a drainage project is being designed to “improve stormwater conveyance and reduce flooding at the Five Corners intersection in the near term.” The state is collaborating closely with Tisbury and the University of New Hampshire Stormwater Center on this effort. But this Island has grown frustrated by endless studies and revised plans. It is time for action to be taken on fixing Five Corners.
We know it won’t be cheap. There aren’t construction costs or a timeline yet, and designs are, as always, still being worked out, but the total contract cost is estimated to be $1.59 million, with an estimated total “federal participating construction cost” of $1.69 million, according to MassDOT’s project info site.
“As MassDOT continues its partnership with the town of Tisbury, the department anticipates working toward advancing for future consideration in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP),” Goggin said in July.
Future consideration? Really? Islanders on the ground are the ones who take on the brunt of the disruption, and they need action, not “consideration” or more plans. We need the town and the state to readily inform residents about this project so feedback can be properly received and changes advanced. We’ll be watching closely. It is likely to be the most important piece of roadwork on the Island, and it happens to be right outside the window of our newsroom.
