Post date: Aug 21, 2017 12:43:38 PM

Car sinks 20 feet into Wellfleet dune, after torrential rains

A car fell 20 feet after a dune collapsed at the Cape Cod National Seashore in Wellfleet. DAVID CURRAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

By Jacob Carozza GLOBE CORRESPONDENT AUGUST 19, 2017

Torrential rains deluged parts of Cape Cod early Saturday morning, causing flash floods throughout Barnstable County and collapsing a dune in Wellfleet, sending a car plunging 20 feet into a crevice in the sand.

Six or 7 inches of rain hit Wellfleet, most of it falling between 12:30 and 2:30 a.m., according to National Weather Service meteorologist Lenore Correia. The car was parked at a town-owned lot next to the Beachcomber restaurant at Cahoon Hollow Beach, the Fire Department said in a statement.

“Every time you think you’ve seen everything, something else pops up,” said Rich Quirk, vice president of Silver Cloud Towing, the South Yarmouth company that pulled the car from the collapsed dune.

The Honda sedan, which was unoccupied, filled with water and was undriveable, Quirk said.

The person who had parked the car was an employee of the Beachcomber restaurant, which is next to the lot, he said.

“I didn’t expect to see it down that far. . . the car was full of mud and water,” Quirk said.

Sydney, an employee of the restaurant who declined to give her last name, said a band was playing and only a few people were left in the restaurant when the dune collapsed around 12:30 a.m.

“I looked out, and there was part of the fence missing . . . and everybody started rushing outside and there was a car literally 90 degrees on its front, sitting in the dune. It was just crazy,” she said.

The employee who had driven the car there was shocked when he saw what had happened, she said — but he managed to see some humor in it.

“He was just laughing about it, because at that point I don’t know what else you can do,” she said.

“Erosion is inevitable on the Cape,” Sydney said. “The parking lot has gotten smaller so much over the years, just from winter storms. We knew it would happen but I don’t think we knew it would happen to this extent this quickly.”

The parking lot was “being eroded and washing away by the torrential rain that was ongoing at the time,” the Fire Department statement said.

Firefighters tried to pull the car out by attaching it with a cable and winch to a truck, but soon a section of the parking lot, which was 25 feet wide by 40 feet long, collapsed, according to the statement.

The parking lot was ordered closed due to “the poor lighting conditions, uncertainty of the stability of the remaining parking area and out of concern for the safety of the public and public safety personnel,” the statement said.

Wellfleet police, fire, beach department and public works employees returned around 8:30 a.m., when sunlight allowed them to better assess the situation. It then took an hour to extricate the car from the dune.

The lot remains closed, according to the statement.

“A significant portion of this parking lot will need to be rebuilt before it can be reopened,” it said.

The amount and intensity of the downpour that hit the Cape was unusual, something that happens only “once every couple of years,” Correia said.

Many towns on the Cape received 6 or 7 inches of rain, with Eastham getting the most at 8 inches, she said.

“Eight inches usually surpasses the monthly total” for August on Cape Cod, Correia said.

Jacob Carozza can be reached at jacob.carozza@globe.com.