As I See It

Bill Sargent, The Daily News of Newburyport, Edition January 19, 2019

“The first winter storm of the year took everyone, particularly weather forecasters, by surprise. They had expected a fast-moving storm that would only drop a few inches of snow on places like New York City.”

“Instead, Avery crept up from the south killing five people in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Georgia. Drivers on Rt. 309 in Pennsylvania were astonished to see a humped camel standing beside the road shaking the snow off its shaggy fur. Its owner had taken the camel out of its trailer fearing it would be rear-ended in the slippery snow and sleet.”

“New York City was hit particularly hard. The second largest amount of snow to ever fall in November had buried Central Park under six white inches of the slushy stuff. It took some New Yorkers 10 hours to get home because the snow had unexpectedly fallen in the midst of their evening commute.”

“Avery dropped three inches of ice, snow, and cement-like slush on Boston and twice that much on perennially benighted Worcester. And coasties from the Merrimack River Station took their lifesaving boats out to train in the towering waves.”

“But Avery was not your standard model nor’easter that hangs around for three or four days and several tidal cycles. Avery had blasted through New England in 14 hours and had only been at its peak during a single moderately high tidal cycle.”

“But the eight-foot waves and seven-foot high tide had been enough to erode the center of Plum Island’s North Point Beach and wash sand through the Merrimack River’s south jetty.”

“I wasn’t able to get out to see the results until November 18^th. But I could still see where waves had washed a three-foot deep riverbed into the sand along the oceanside beach so that even moderate high tides could now wash sand through the jetty.”

“The evidence was clear. A long sinuous beach lay below the riverside of the jetty. Over the following three weeks 10,000 cubic yards of new sand would snake its way down the jetty and around its spur to build up the beach in front of the houses on Northern Reservation Terrace. A few more storms like Avery and they might even make it through the winter.”

“The storm also ruined a beautiful theory with an ugly fact. Erosion had removed several feet off the center of North Beach and steepened its profile so that now four feet of cement were visible below the base of the streetlight like pole and fuel line.”

“It also revealed that the chain link was not from a U-boat or fishing trawl but simply part of a barbed wire topped fence that had protected the fuel line. But when would it have been so important to have a fuel line in such an incongruous spot?”

“Instead of solving the riddle Avery had only made it that much more mysterious.”

Copyright © 2019 The Daily News of Newburyport, Edition 1/19/2019