Seacoast area prepares for another high tide of floods after weekend storm
SALISBURY - The sand, mud, and debris are nearly all cleaned up from Wednesday's high tide that sent the Atlantic barreling over beaches and into neighborhoods, flooding streets in Hampton, Salisbury, and more.
In Salisbury, giant sand dunes sit at the entrance to the beach. They are stacks of sand that was plowed and piled up from the roads – and soon, it'll likely be washed right back into the street following a storm overnight Friday into Saturday. There is a coastal flood warning during high tide midday on Saturday.
"Existing sea wall barriers throughout the seacoast have been compromised as a result from the recent snow and rain, and a new storm will cause further damage which could produce significant street flooding and road closures," a press release from the town of Rye, New Hampshire read.
Wednesday's floods were "pretty unexpected, and the tide came up very quickly over the road which has been kind of a recurring theme over the last several years," explained Salisbury Fire Chief Scott Carrigan. "We were caught a little off guard the other day, but since then…the folks at emergency management have advised us that the conditions for tomorrow could be as bad or potentially worse than they were several days ago."
The biggest ask: move your cars. If you live in an area that will flood, the towns ask that you move your cars to higher elevation to avoid them getting destroyed in salty floodwaters. "[It] doesn't seem to discourage people from driving through, so as the water is coming up and we are trying to close roads and explain to people that if they just wait a short period of time that everything will be fine, but sometimes it doesn't make a difference and we have people who just feel like they have something they absolutely need to get done," Carrigan explained.
Cars then stall out and become trapped on flooded roads with people inside – a reality of Wednesday that Carrigan would like to avoid on Saturday.