Two early nor'easters pound Nantucket with gusts to 54 mph

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY The view from above. Surf pounds the toe of 'Sconset Bluff. Two nor'easters struck Nantucket last weekend, dumping nearly two inches of rain on the island and pounding it with wind gusts up to 54 miles per hour.

While Friday's smaller northeast system did not kick in until later that day, forcing boat cancellations and stranding mainlanders on the island that afternoon, Sunday's blow felt much like the nor'easters Nantucket experiences in late winter with cold, raw, windy and pelting rain conditions.

"We had a low pressure system develop off the coast what we usually refer to as nor'easter," said meteorologist Hayden Frank at the National Weather Service office in Taunton, Mass. "They're more typical in the winter or early spring. The lows just kind of brought wind and rain and chilly temperatures and northeast wind around the low pressure."

Frank said having a nor'easter in October is certainly earlier than Nantucketers should expect one, but it is nothing out of the ordinary. The first low pressure system developed off the Massachusetts coast on Friday and the second moved up the East Coast and hit the island hard on Sunday, especially at high tide at 12:44 p.m.

PHOTOS BY PETER BRACE Old North Wharf is submerged. Harbor waves with huge white caps charged well up onto the shore at Francis Street Beach and drivers navigated a flooded Washington Street between there and the Town Pier while the town closed Easy Street from Old North Wharf north to Broad Street, and Easton Street from the White Elephant to Hulbert Avenue. Waves easily broke over the Easy Street bulkhead, loosened some of the finger pier decking on the south side of that basin and for a time at high tide on Sunday, beat against the bottoms of several Old North Wharf cottages and submerged that wharf's eastern pier.

Hy-Line Cruises vice president Murray Scudder said his boat line cancelled the last two trips between Hyannis and Nantucket on Friday and all service on Sunday, resuming their trips to and from Nantucket on Monday morning. The Steamship Authority canceled all of its service on Sunday as well.

Largely spared from the storm's ravages other than the wind, was the Island's South Shore and bay scallops in Nantucket Harbor. Scalloper Doug Smith reported that a team of scallopers walking the shores of the inner harbor found no scallops blown on shore as result of last weekend's high winds.

Easton Street takes on water. However, 'Sconset did not fair as well. Big sections of the clay, sand and dirt along the bluff between 97 and 81 Baxter Road broke off, slumping down to the beach below where waves beat against the toe of the bluff. And yesterday, not wanting to wait for more erosion of his property, Lawrence McQuade of 97 Baxter Road had a crane pick up and move the remaining half of a cottage hanging over the edge of his section of bluff over onto an adjacent lot. I

Fishermen secure their boats on Saturday. This cottage almost appears to be a house boat with the high water level.