Northeast Coast Cleaning Up From Historic Flooding

The Northeastern part of the United States’ coastline was still cleaning up this week after winter storms caused devastating flooding over the weekend, WBTS-CD reports, while bracing for more snow, sleet, and rain scheduled for Tuesday night.

In Massachusetts, coastal communities were dealing with both water and sand that washed up due to powerful high winds and waves. Shops, streets, and homes were all flooded, with at least 20 homes suffering damage.

“I had my hip waders on, and it was up over my knees walking down. Probably about two or three blocks,” resident Chuck Shaw told WBTS-CD.

In Cinnaminson, New Jersey, WPVI-TV reports that the Delaware River rose to a record high of 11.9 feet on Wednesday morning, before the second wave of rain moved through again on Friday. According to resident Volkan Cicek, his home’s basement flooded for the first time in decades.

“I saw a lot of storms, but this was really bad,” said Cicek.

According to WGME-TV, in an effort to turn a disaster into something positive, about a dozen students from Baxter Academy for Technology and Science, a college preparatory high school in Portland, Maine, picked up marine debris that had washed up from the historic storms onto Higgins Beach in nearby Scarborough, intending to recycle what they found to create art sculptures. Their efforts were part of a year-long research project on marine debris.