Bystander lauded for saving harbormaster
Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday toured cities and towns hardest hit by Thursday’s snowstorm, stopping in Scituate where sea water bursting through sections of a dilapidated sea wall damaged homes.
“It’s important for us to learn from these storms and to make adjustments,” Baker said, adding, “Obviously this makes clear we have some additional work to do with respect to the sea wall ... which I believe was constructed at various points in the pre-1950s.”
Baker said the pattern of increasingly powerful coastal storms can be partially attributed to “two undeniable facts.”
“One is the water temperatures are warmer than they were 20 years ago, certainly warmer than they were 40 or 50 years ago, and the water levels, the sea levels are higher than they were,” Baker said. “You put those two things together and you throw a storm on top of it and you’re likely to get a bigger surge.”
Baker, who said he was pleased with how the state responded to the massive storm, applauded the actions of Mill Wharf Restaurant manager Stephan Hill, who rushed to pull Scituate Harbormaster Stephen Mone out of the water after he fell into the ice-cold harbor while trying to tie up a boat.
“It takes a lot of guts, in the middle of a storm, to run out onto the docks and do what you did,” Baker said to Hill. “Thank you.”
Hill said Mone “had one more line to get” when the dock heaved and he went into the water.
“The waves, the ice, he slipped off,” Hill said. “Then I just ran out there.”