The Power of Winter Storms, Manomet Beach, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

It's that time of year when heavy equipment can be found on the beach, repairing the intense destruction that winter storms brought to the bluff and stairways. This year the damage was more severe than many have ever experienced. It is certainly the worst I have seen. Not only did high surf, wind, and tides do damage to much of the beach and most stairways, the intense rainfalls contributed to slippage of the face of the bluff in many places, eroding property and the critical foliage that normally helps stabilize and anchor the surface.

Hope springs eternal and hundreds of thousands of dollars will be expended by individual owners over the coming months to try to repair what nature has wrought. Regardless the effort and expense, nature will likely prevail - the erosion process has been going on for millennia and man and bulldozers and rocks will not stop it.

The following images will give a sense of some of the damaged stairways and hillsides.



























Amazingly, this stairway and bluff section received almost no damage.

And this one has already been repaired.