Noel, hurricane-turned-nor'easter, hammers island
ConCom issues enforcement orders on imperiled Madaket homes
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
After morphing into a powerful nor'easter, the remnants of Hurricane Noel pounded and soaked Nantucket with 87-mph gusts and nearly four inches of rain on Saturday.

Homes and dunes at the end of Massachusetts Avenue near Smith's Point took a pasting during Saturday's storm; the sloop "Boru," one of a dozen boats that slipped their moorings, came ashore hard against the pier at 64 Monomoy Road

The large, fast-moving storm - which lost its hurricane status as it worked its way up the coast through increasingly cooler waters last week - washed away more than 20 feet of shoreline in Madaket, blew boatloads of scallops up onto harbor beaches and downed two large American elms on North Water Street.

Although the National Weather Service office in Taunton, Mass. listed gusts to 72 mph around 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, local reports put island wind gusts as high as 87 mph.

"As it moved up the coast, it lost its tropical characteristics. Basically it was just a very powerful nor'easter," said National Weather Service Meteorologist Charley Foley. "It did come within 75 miles of Nantucket. That was the core of the storm, so it was a very sprawling storm."

PHOTOS ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

The storm took out power and longdistance calling services for varying periods of time during Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday. The usual low-lying areas around the harbor flooded at high tide around 8 p.m., but the town was not forced to open its emergency shelter at Nantucket High School.

All in all, said Nantucket Fire Chief Mark McDougal, "I think we did all right."

THE MADAKET MESS

Four houses on the southwestern end of Massachusetts Avenue on Smith's Point were hit hard by the pounding waves generated by Noel.

Four days after James and Barbara Heneghan of North Granby, Conn. were forced to demolish their beach house at 47 Massachusetts Ave. because they had run out of room to retreat, Noel left the Heneghans' neighbor, Martin Levine at 45 Massachusetts Ave., with little doubt of his house's short future. The seas scoured sand from beneath his porch and claimed a nearby utility pole.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent This fanciful giraffe placed on the so-called "Serengeti" off the Milestone Road got its neck broken by Noel's high winds.

The Conservation Commission issued an enforcement order on Monday to compel Levine, of Westport, Conn., to move his house back onto cribbing in the dunes behind his house, and to clean up the debris left on his lot. Levine, however, may not have much land left on his .20-of-an-acre lot to reestablish it permanently.

"They have room to store it on their lot," said ConCom Administrator Dirk Roggeveen. "I don't know if they can put it on their lot, but they can certainly keep it out of the water."

Levine's enforcement order, the Conservation Commission's citation of a wetlands violation, reads: "Dwelling extending over coastal bank at risk of falling onto beach and breaking up in ocean as the result of high tides and storm events."

Just to the east of Levine's house, at 34 Massachusetts Ave., the ocean took a huge bite out of Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Ronald G. and Diane R. Russo's cottage, aptly named "Breaking Away". Perched high on its cinderblock foundation, one could walk into the basement of the house from the crumbled concrete and debris on the beach.

The next house east, at 36 Massachusetts Ave., owned by Wellesley, Mass. resident Francis Callaghan Jr., also lost significant bluff. Fortunately for Callaghan, his house is built on pilings driven into the dunes. The ConCom has yet to issue enforcement orders for these two properties, but did dole out one for Smith's Point Association President Tom Erichsen at 34 Rhode Island Ave. on Tuesday, the last Madaket property owner to feel the sting of Noel.

With his septic system exposed, utility wires and pipes jutting out of his dunes and part of his deck suspended over the beach, Erichsen has little room to move inland, having completed a move to a new foundation earlier this year.

Erichsen could not be reached for comment.

THE FAR EAST IS SPARED

Although Nantucket's eastern shores usually take the brunt of nor'easters, the bluff and beaches along imperiled Baxter Road suffered surprisingly minor erosion and little damage to terracing installations, said Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund Executive Director Cheryl Bartlett.

"I don't know the exact percentage of the terraces, but it looks like most of them fared pretty well," said Bartlett. "I think the good news is it moved too fast to wreak havoc."

As required by its order of conditions from the ConCom for the terraces, SBPF - after every major storm - must submit a detailed damage report to the commission within 30 days. Bartlett will be submitting a preliminary damage report to the ConCom this week.

ALL-YOU-CAN-CATCH SCALLOPS

In Nantucket and Madaket harbors, Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto said about 12 boats broke free of their moorings and washed ashore. Also, hundreds of bushels of adult and seed scallops washed ashore along Hulbert Avenue and from the UMass field station to the end of Fulling Mill Road. They were also found in thinning numbers all the way to Abram's Point.

Damage in Nantucket Harbor included the flattening of a section of the catwalk extending from Old North Wharf out to its boat slips and some minor damage to the town pier. There was no reported loss of navigation buoys or vessels underway.

"We didn't have any calls for assistance," said Station Brant Point Senior Chief Terrell J. Malvesti. "We basically battened down the hatches and watched our boats. Yesterday [Monday] our main goal was poststorm damage patrols. We did two patrols of Nantucket Harbor."

Malvesti's crew retrieved debris from the Old North Wharf catwalk, including pilings and other lumber. On their base, Nantucket's Coasties sustained minor flooding - about five inches in the basement of the barracks building - when the harbor breached their bulkhead during high tide at around 8 p.m.

Along Easton Street, near the White Elephant, the evening high tide storm surge submerged that road under two feet of water, and filled the wetland across the street from the hotel with enough water for ducks and gulls to paddle around in it on Sunday. Easy Street flooded briefly as well.

NANTUCKET UNPLUGGED

As nor'easters go, island customers of wired and wireless utilities did not suffer for long as in past storms when electricity, cable television and phone service got knocked out for as long as 24 hours or more.

National Grid spokesman David Graves said the three extra linemen crews sent to the island on Friday were able to keep outages that began around 3 p.m. Saturday to less than four hours.

"The largest one started around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night and involved 2,400 customers," said Graves. "A tree fell on one of our poles on Polpis Road. They were out for around three hours and 45 minutes."

After a tree fell on a substation on Milk Street, 1,200 customers in the area lost power. Another 1,353 customers along Milestone Road went dark at 5:40 p.m. for 45 minutes while National Grid crews cleared fallen trees from power lines.

"Just about everybody on the island lost power on the island at one point or another. But everyone with the exception of a few individual customers were restored by 2 a.m. Sunday morning," said Graves.

The hundreds of tree blow-downs around the island that the Department of Public Works dealt with, including many along Milestone Road, in the State Forest and two large elms on North Water Street, were not to blame for Verizon's loss of long-distance calling service on Monday morning.

Rick Colon, Verizon's Media Relations spokesman, said that after Verizon's microwave tower on Eel Point Road lost power, their generator kicked on. But when that generator ran out of fuel on Monday, long-distance service died. Verizon had its microwave system reenergized by 2:15

p.m. on Monday. I