Washout nor’easter

As a rainbow arched over Vineyard Haven Harbor Monday afternoon, an early-season nor’easter began to exit from the Cape and Islands. The storm, which brought wind gusts as high as 60 mph, finally ended, after between five and eight inches of rain had been dumped on the Island over the weekend and into Monday. And many Islanders, who had been left stranded due to every ferry line’s decision to cancel almost every trip to and from Martha’s Vineyard, breathed a sigh of relief.

Though damage wasn’t as bad as anticipated, high winds and intermittent heavy rain amid a full-moon tide, which occurred midday Saturday, caused a few road closures, at least one sunken boat in Oak Bluffs Harbor, a closure to all shellfish areas across the state, and power outages for more than 700 Islanders.

Based on a state-certified rain gauge at the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group’s hatchery on Lagoon Pond, almost eight inches of rain fell over the weekend, Donovan McElligatt, shellfish warden for Oak Bluffs, said. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration logged 0.91 inches of rain on Saturday and 4.22 inches on Sunday. Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS), said that 5.18 inches fell, based on instruments at Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

Tarasiewicz also said that the highest gusts on the Island were 60 mph, almost exactly as forecast. Based on buoy data, wave heights reached between five and eight feet in Nantucket Sound, and 10 to 15 feet near Block Island, Tarasiewicz added. The NWS issued a high surf advisory, high wind warning, and coastal flood warning for the Island through the weekend, and predicted six- to 13-foot waves in the surf zone.

Some Islanders took the forecast as a reason to test out the waves on the South Shore. Chace Lewis, who photographed Island surfers Friday before the peak of the storm, said that the early-season nor’easter pushed an odd swell direction that made it hard, but not impossible, to “find a few diamonds in the rough.”

Several businesses, such as the Island Food Pantry, Martha’s Vineyard Medical, and Island Health Care, announced closures Friday for the next day. And following every other ferry line’s suspension of service for several days (even the Chappy Ferry shut down on Friday at noon), the Steamship Authority (SSA) canceled ferries Friday afternoon and Saturday, which wreaked havoc at the height of the wedding season and the Derby.

Sean Driscoll, communications director for the SSA, said that the first trips to be canceled Friday on the Vineyard route were the 12:25 pm trips on the Barnstable and Sankaty.

“Based on the forecast and the duration of the event, we made the decision Friday night to cancel the entire day’s service Saturday, to give customers certainty about their travel plans. We tend to keep those decisions a little closer to the time of service, but based on the forecast, there seemed little doubt that conditions were not favorable,” Driscoll said.

There were also cancellations for the SSA Sunday, which resumed service on the 7:40 am trip, due to trip consolidation based on low demand. Driscoll said that many people didn’t travel even when the boats opened back up. Trips continued to be diverted from Oak Bluffs to Vineyard Haven into Monday.

Vineyard Haven Harbor fared well, Michael Gately, Tisbury harbormaster, said. There were a few boats beached, and a “couple of close calls,” he said, but the town came out intact. Northeast winds are very hard on the harbor, but between the harbormaster’s department, Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard, and Gannon and Benjamin, Gately said, every boat out in the water was “double-checked and triple-checked.”

Northeast winds are also hard on Oak Bluffs Harbor, which saw two boats take on water, one of which was almost completely submerged Friday. Em deBettencourt, Oak Bluffs harbormaster, was on vacation over the weekend, and Donovan McElligatt, who stood in for her, said that a 30-foot MerCruiser, originally tied up in a slip then moored for the storm, sank Friday afternoon. There was no one on board, and TowBoatUS was on scene Monday to refloat and haul the boat out, but McElligatt said he thinks the boat is a “total loss.” He was notified at 3:15 pm Friday, and the boat was completely submerged by 3:43 pm.

A powerboat was “listing heavily” Monday, Jennifer Goeckel, assistant marina manager, said in her update to the town, and it was stabilized and pumped out by the shellfish and harbor departments. TowBoatUS was there, and also evaluated that boat.

McElligatt said that the Oak Bluffs “pump-out boat” had been taken out of the harbor on Thursday because the harbormaster was away, and he had been worried about the vessel in the storm as well as about a bilge pump malfunction. Also, at an emergency management discussion on Friday, officials decided that no one would risk their lives for property damage, McElligatt said. A Fire Department boat was in the harbor in case of a human safety risk. 

McElligatt told The Times that prior to the peak of the storm, he’d located an elderly couple who intended to ride out the storm on their vessel moored in the harbor, and that he, alongside the town administrator’s office and Fire Department, transported them and their cat (in a Modelo box) off the boat to the nearest hotel.

Another boat broke loose in Oak Bluffs Harbor Thursday, landed on a dock, and was able to be put back on a mooring with no damage, Goeckel also said in her update.

A Harthaven Community Association dock broke free, and was retrieved by the harbor department, McElligatt said. He also acknowledged that part of the dock at East Chop Beach Club broke off and washed ashore. The town is aware of the broken dock, but as the club is a private entity, repairs are their responsibility, McElligatt said.

There are plans to go out this week to recover buoys from the areas between East Chop Beach Club and State Beach, he added.

In Edgartown, Gary Kovack, harbormaster, said they had tracked the storm early and found spots for boats that needed to be relocated; two boats broke free but landed on the beach, and vessel owners were notified. “We had a crowded harbor … with a lot of visitors seeking shelter,” he said.

The breach between Cape Poge and Norton Point may have helped, Kovack said, because that open waterway gave the storm surge somewhere to go. About half of the Dock Street lot, near the Edgartown Yacht Club, was flooded, but Kovack said there wasn’t more water than is usual for a full-moon tide. He added that the Derby moved the prize Jeep, out of caution.

Edgartown’s town administrator, James Hagerty, said there wasn’t “significant flooding, damage, or outages to report,” and the town fared well. 

In the town of Gosnold, Cuttyhunk Assistant Harbormaster Maddie Lynch said that the wind was pretty strong, and there were two- to three-foot waves inside the harbor. She said they lost one public dinghy dock, which she plans to haul out this week to get repaired, but there were no injuries. Lynch said the worst of the storm was between Friday at 8 pm and Saturday at around 10 am in terms of wind and waves.

Jeffrey Madison, town administrator for Aquinnah, said he wasn’t aware of any issues related to the storm. West Tisbury Town Administrator Jennifer Rand said the same — a few tree limbs downed, “but nothing of note.”

Tim Carroll, town administrator for Chilmark, said nothing serious was reported to the town.

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There was, however, significant flooding in Vineyard Haven. MassDOT closed Beach Road from Five Corners to the hospital around 11 am on Saturday. A portion of Seaview Avenue in Oak Bluffs was also closed to traffic. The road closures forced the Vineyard Transit Authority to detour several routes.

Olessa Stepanova, communications director for the Island’s utility provider, Eversource, said that between Friday and Sunday, there were 21 outage events, and over the course of the three days, 791 customers on the Island lost power. Eversource sent extra crews in ahead of the storm before there were ferry cancellations, and the damage was what they expected, though the storm started to shift further west, Stepanova said. Tree limbs account for more than 90 percent of outages, she said, and all power was restored to Islanders by Monday.

Cape Poge and Leland beaches remained closed to oversand vehicle dues to flooded trails through Tuesday. Wasque was opened Monday for only parking and walking, according to the Trustees of Reservations, which manages the areas on Chappaquiddick. Mary Dettloff, director of public relations for the Trustees, reported that Darci Schofield, Islands Trustees director, said because the trails were flooded and the tide remained high, they weren’t able to drive out on them to get a good look at any erosion on Monday. There was a lot of sand movement, Schofield said, though she didn’t think erosion was as bad as expected. Schofield and staff were at work to recover fencing that had been buried in the sand. A social media post from the Trustees Wednesday reopened the beaches to oversand vehicles.

The Edgartown Parks Department didn’t respond to calls, but Hagerty said no losses had been reported to him, and he assumed that wind direction, which was primarily northeast, played a part in less erosion than typically seen from storms on the South Shore.

The state Department of Marine Fisheries (DMF) issued a closure of all shellfish areas Saturday at sunrise due to the rainfall. (There is a four-inch threshold of rainfall across the state before areas are closed.) DMF planned to come out to the Island Tuesday, McElligatt said, to collect an initial round of samples that should take around one or two days to process at the state laboratory before the areas can be opened again. Currently, no recreational harvest can occur across the Island, and no commercial oysters can be taken to market. The storm has a “pretty significant ripple effect,” McElligatt said.