Quincy shore takes a pounding
Residents of Houghs Neck flee as floodwaters rise
The wind-blasted sea swallowed whole swaths of the Houghs Neck neighborhood in Quincy, forcing residents to flee their homes into National Guard trucks even at low tide and prompting fears about how high today’s high tide will rise.
Long stretches of Sea Street — the main way into the shoreline neighborhood — were flooded over and some escaped the rising water carried to dry land in the bucket of a front-loader.
Houghs Neck residents, some clinging to belongings protected from the elements in white trash bags, trudged in and out of their water-logged neighborhood along a mile-long elevated path.
Nate Weber walked briskly through the mud and standing water, cradling a water pump and hoses to protect his basement on Babcock Street.
“We are preparing for the worst,” Weber said, flabbergasted that the evening low tide hadn’t amounted to much of a respite. “If this is what it’s like at the low tide, what is it going to be like at high tide?”
The nor’easter coming so soon after a record-setting Jan. 4 storm that brought similar high water got him thinking that the Quincy neighborhood was in need of a name change.
“New title: Houghs Neck Island,” Weber said. “The future of Quincy, Massachusetts; it’s an island.”
Another resident, Pat Bannon, said he recently bought his Houghs Neck home. The ocean view is usually limited to his backyard. Now, the sea is in his front yard.
“The fence is gone, the pool, the dock,” Bannon said.
He said there’s little to be done, and he did know the risks when he bought the house.
“You can’t really complain,” Bannon said. “The summers are beautiful.”
The National Weather Service said “major flooding” in nearby Scituate could occur, pushing high water to nearly 15 feet overnight as high tides are boosted by 4.5 feet of storm surge. Waves at sea could reach 28 feet.
“Some vulnerable homes along the immediate shoreline may be destroyed from the combination of high water and severe wave action tonight,” NWS forecasters warned. “Many neighborhoods will remain cut off for an extended time. This will remain a very dangerous storm.”
Rescue crews evacuated people from flooded homes across the city, police said, advising people at dusk to hunker down if they were in a safe place. The city opened shelters at Quincy High School and Atherton Hough Elementary School for people who fled their homes.