Beach town residents paid $600,000 for sand; much of it has washed away

The owners of beachfront homes in the seaside community of Salisbury Beach in northern Massachusetts spent nearly $600,000 to have about 15,000 tons of sand dropped near their properties to protect themselves from future storms.

But the Atlantic Ocean had something else coming. The high tide and winds that pounded the area last Sunday washed nearly half of the sand away, mere days after it was placed.

The storm left the beach area stripped and defenseless before the ocean waters that draw vacationers to that beach town every year.

“People are depressed, discouraged, angry,” said Tom Saab, president of Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change, a group representing property owners that spearheaded the sand project. “The dunes did their job. They sacrificed themselves to protect the properties — no properties were really damaged.”

The citizens group decided in January to purchase the sand that was placed in mid-february along a 1.5-mile stretch of Salisbury Beach near the properties, Saab said. About 150 buildings line the stretch of beach, including single houses and condos. The beach stretches for about 4 miles, and the adjoining properties are estimated collectively to be worth $2 billion, he said.

The sand-dune project came to be after Salisbury Beach had been hit hard by storms over the past couple of months. It was inundated by a high tide and a nor’easter in December 2022, which “devastated” the beach, said Saab, who has lived on Salisbury Beach for decades.

In January, two more nor’easters hit the area, he said.

“Those two storms basically wiped the whole beach out,” Saab said of the January storms. “Properties were damaged — decks were destroyed,” he said, adding that stairways and patios had been damaged, too.

“One home was condemned, not allowed to be lived in,” he said.

To take matters into their own hands, the citizens group initiated the sand project in mid-february, raising the required funds from property owners. It had wrapped up the project last week. It was cause for celebration, just a few days before the next washout.

“Everybody had beautiful dunes, all paid for out of their own pockets — not a penny from the state of Massachusetts at all,” Saab said. “We built this 11/2 miles of beach ready to protect us.”

Then the nor’easter landed and took 50% of the sand and an estimated $300,000 worth of work, according to the group.

Two access points to the Salisbury Beach State Reservation were closed last Sunday and remained closed Thursday because of storm damage, according to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Some area residents are calling for help from state leaders. They contend that state officials should chip in, partly because the protection afforded by the dunes extends beyond their properties to the infrastructure of the town and the state.