‘I Don't Think It's Going to Be Here in 10 Years’

By Tori Torres and Rose Wosepka

SANDWICH — When a bomb cyclone barreled across Cape Cod in February, the nor’easter spawned 80 mph gusts that whipped up heavy seas and battered much of this hook of land that stretches into the Atlantic. 

More than 100,000 people lost power and heat — many of them for days.

For Laura Wing, it was worse. The pummeling surf ravaged the dunes protecting her cedar-shingled home that overlooks Springhill Beach. It also destroyed her four-year-old staircase to the beach. 

Wing’s home has been in her family for over 100 years, a place where she and many of her relatives have spent summers and holidays.

Wing’s experience reflects a growing concern among homeowners across Cape Cod, where rising sea levels and stronger storms are eroding beaches and threatening coastal homes. As climate change intensifies, many local residents are facing difficult questions, such as whether they should rebuild and fortify their properties or sell. 

Local and state officials are facing similar questions about how they can reduce the danger to their communities and how much they should spend to do that.

“This is the kind of house that you'd like to pass on to the next generation," Wing said. "I want to keep it going, but I don't think it's going to be here in 10 years.” 

The February storm, which hit Sandwich with 10-foot waves and as much as three feet of coastal flooding, caused more than $38 billion in damage across the Northeast. 

The nor'easter rapidly intensified due to warmer ocean temperatures, a key characteristic of climate-linked storms. 

A National Academy of Sciences study last year of nearly 900 nor’easters over the past 85 years found a 6% increase in peak sustained wind speeds and a 20% rise in their overall destructive power. 

Source: Section 111 Shore Damage Mitigation Study

For Cape Cod, stronger winds combined with rising sea levels bring crashing waves further inland, increasing coastal flooding and damage. The growing intensity of winter storms has accelerated shoreline retreat, or the loss of structural sand that provides the foundation for beaches. As a result, beaches have less time to naturally rebuild between storms, according to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Sandwich is particularly vulnerable to storm damage due to its low-lying geography along Cape Cod Bay, according to the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Management. 

Source: 

Wing grew up spending summers at the beach house with her family and continued the tradition with her children, but winters are often too dangerous to remain there, she said. Her primary residence is in another part of Sandwich, farther inland.

When it rains hard, the salt marsh behind Wing’s house fills with water and causes roads to flood. The dunes beneath her home, once large and protective, have become narrower with each storm. She said she has lost eight horizontal feet of sand.

Kristy Senatori, executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, which oversees land use planning in Barnstable County, said one of the biggest challenges of her job is balancing long-term climate projections with the immediate needs of communities. 

Senatori described the difficulties local governments face in making decisions about roads, buildings, and critical infrastructure that will remain in place for decades, as the risks from sea-level rise and coastal storms evolve.

“Towns are navigating limited resources and complex regulatory frameworks while trying to plan proactively for the future,” she said.

Wing has insurance on her two-bedroom beach cottage. But she still had to spend $24,600 after February’s storm on 400 cubic yards of sand to replenish the dunes and rebuild her staircase to the beach.

The challenges included complying with regulations. Due to state wildlife habitat rules, all dune infrastructure had to be rebuilt by April 1, leaving Wing and other homeowners just four weeks to complete the work. 

“We were scrambling pretty hard,” Wing said. “It was very stressful.”

Duncan FitzGerald, an earth and environment professor at Boston University, noted that many Cape Cod residents who live along the water can afford to defend their homes by building seawalls and shore-parallel structures and nourishing their dunes with new sand.

However, as storms continue to threaten beaches, FitzGerald added there will be demands for the state, federal, and local governments to respond to the overall beach erosion and rebuild with taxpayer money. 

“Questions will be raised as to the benefit of using funds in this way for specialty interest,” FitzGerald said.

Some of Wing’s neighbors are grappling with erosion in other ways.

Nadia Alavosius, 38, lives next to a salt marsh in Sandwich, which seeps onto her property during significant storms or tidal surges. She’s planning to build retaining walls to prevent landslides and plant weeping willows to hold the soil in her yard together.

“We're losing people's homes. Whether you care or not about the beach, you need to understand there are people who live here" Alavosius said.

Wing’s family has lived in Sandwich since her ancestor Deborah Wing arrived with other settlers from England in 1631. Even though Deborah was a widow, she was able to own property without remarrying because she was accompanied by a male relative – a rare circumstance for women at the time. She remains the only woman listed on the town’s roster of original families. 

She expects she’ll eventually have to sell but she struggles with when and whether she can really do that. 

Wing’s connection to her family history has been disrupted as erosion continues to threaten her house, her financial security, and even her sense of identity. Anxiety about future repairs is often on her mind, but so is her sense of family connection to the house and the beach.

“There are a lot of ghosts in this house, and they keep me company," Wing said. 

“My parents — their ashes are out in the bay,” Wing said. “I have an older sister who passed away several years ago, and she is here. It’s the family heritage.”

Despite the threats, Wing said it’s difficult to leave a place where she has three generations of history. 

“The family legacy is in this house," Wing said. "It’s pretty much ingrained in who I am.” 

Tori Torres is a senior studying journalism and public relations at Boston University and is an incoming master of public health candidate at George Washington University. You can reach her at ttorres@bu.edu. Rose Wosepka is a master of public health candidate at BU's School of Public Health studying health communication and promotion, and mental health ,and substance use. You can reach her at rwosepka@bu.edu.