NEW BEDFORD — Joe Vieira recalls the broken moorings and damaged boats scattered on the beach near Padanaram Avenue in 1991, after Hurricane Bob hit.
“There were some boats that did actually hit the causeway,” said Vieira, Dartmouth’s emergency management agency director. “[The boats] just kind of crumbled. Some that broke free on the north side of the bridge, they just ended up in a marsh.”
Hurricane Bob, the last hurricane to hit the South Coast, is a distant memory for most residents. But with Hurricane Lee projected to head toward New England later this week, a younger generation of South Coast emergency management leaders is preparing for the hurricane season’s upcoming peak.
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National Weather Service officials say Massachusetts is “overdue” for a major hurricane. And they note that a warming atmosphere, growing coastal development, and sea level rise are slowly multiplying the risk of damages from a severe storm in the state.
But local emergency management officials say hurricane preparation has improved, even as the threat has grown. Advances in technology, infrastructure, and regional emergency response planning give them confidence that their towns will be adequately prepared for a major storm.
The South Coast has managed to avoid the brunt of hurricane season since Hurricane Bob, a Category 2 storm, made landfall in 1991. The last major hurricane to hit here was Carol, a Category 3, in 1954.
When Bob hit, Brian Nobrega, New Bedford’s emergency management director, was in first grade, recovering from tonsil surgery at home. Fairhaven’s fire chief, Todd Correia, had just graduated high school, while Mattapoisett’s town administrator, Michael Lorenco, was just 6 years old. Wareham emergency management director Patrick MacDonald hadn’t even been born yet.
Still, these officials are taking the threat of hurricane season seriously. They’re conducting regular internal meetings and tabletop exercises with local emergency response leaders.
Growth since Hurricane Bob
The South Coast is much better prepared for a hurricane than it was in Bob’s era. Real-time hurricane tracking technology has gotten much more advanced since the 1990s, says Nobrega. Buoys, small aircraft, and satellites can send real-time hurricane data to decision-makers onshore.
These inventions, combined with precision storm-tracking models, now give local emergency managers a week’s notice to make preparations for landfall. That’s up from as little as two to three days in past decades, as with Hurricanes Hugo in the Carolinas in 1989 and Andrew in Louisiana in 1992.
New Bedford and other local towns, such as Fairhaven and Wareham, have reverse-911 phone alert systems that can beam out emergency messages to all phones within a certain geographic area.
“That would be an avenue of getting the word out pre-storm,” Nobrega said. “That’s our last resort when we’re evacuating an area. However, we could also be pushing out information, ‘Hey, there’s a storm coming up; we want you to start securing your property.’”
Correia said that Fairhaven is also experimenting with a technology called Crisis Track that will allow emergency response crews to track street closures and property damages in real time and delegate responses.
Other emergency response officials cited upgrades and investments in infrastructure as key in providing increased protection from storms.
Dartmouth installed new culverts on Flag Swamp and Fisher roads in recent years. Eversource has hardened telephone lines and power infrastructure since Bob. Wareham and Mattapoisett have purchased swaths of coastal wetlands for conservation, MacDonald and Lorenco noted, which could help protect their towns from the impacts of a severe storm.
Jamie Ponte of the New Bedford Department of Public Works said that building the Covewalk added roughly a foot to the hurricane barrier’s height in 2015, providing additional protection amid sea level rise.
The hurricane barrier, completed in 1966 after four years of construction, protects downtown New Bedford and Fairhaven from storms ranging up to a Category 3 hurricane. It has prevented an estimated $24 million in damages over its lifetime. It has also passed “rigorous” annual Army Corps of Engineers inspections.
New Bedford’s hurricane barrier is “the envy of many coastal cities,” said Gordon Carr, executive director of the New Bedford Port Authority. “It provides a high degree of safety. It makes us a very popular harbor. It has more than done its job.”
The emergency managers say local hazard mitigation plans, and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency’s statewide disaster mutual aid networks in 2015, provide additional security.
Still, many South Coast towns’ hurricane plans need a refresh. Dartmouth, New Bedford, and Wareham town officials said they’re updating outdated parts of their multi-hazard mitigation plans, such as department contacts and street names. Others still are adjusting their plans away from pandemic response and back to natural hazards. Westport currently has no hazard mitigation plan for natural disasters. The town is waiting on a state grant, according to Westport assistant town planner Amy Messier.
‘We’re on defense’
No amount of preparation and technology can stop the destruction from hurricane-force winds and rainfall.
“We can control what we can control, and Mother Nature, we can’t control,” Vieira said. “She’ll do whatever she wants, and we’ll have to respond. We’re on defense, pretty much.”
All of the emergency managers warned residents that a Category 2 or higher hurricane is much more powerful than a nor’easter, and will bring significantly heavier winds, rains, and damage. Sea level rise is increasing the threat of storm surge.
“Back in the day, they used to say a Category 1 is not a big deal,” Nobrega said. “Well, some of the hurricanes that hit down south are Category 1’s, but they’re bringing in 15, 20 feet of storm surge. We want people to realize that it is dangerous.”
Even with the protection of the hurricane barrier, New Bedford’s streets are vulnerable to flooding, Nobrega said.
Federal hurricane maps from 2014 show that if a Category 1 or 2 storm hits at high tide, areas along the shore, including West Rodney French Boulevard, East Rodney French Boulevard, Cove Road, the hurricane barrier, and Padanaram Avenue may have to be evacuated.
If a Category 3 or 4 hurricane hits at high tide, those evacuation areas grow to include the whole South End and the length of New Bedford Harbor stretching from the inner hurricane barrier to the Sawmill, all the way inland to Acushnet Avenue and John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
In Dartmouth, Vieira added, Ricketson’s Point would also likely need to be evacuated in the event of a hurricane hitting at high tide, with a pronounced storm surge. On the Fairhaven side, Correia said the coastline of West Island and Sconticut Neck would be evacuated, and heavy flooding could be expected on Green Street, Main Street, Middle Street, and Route 6.
Correia said he is concerned about a Category 4 storm that could breach the hurricane barrier — or a Category 3 storm that could drive tidal surges into the area of Fort Phoenix and Sconticut Neck, and cause significant flood damage.
Wareham’s “congested” and low-lying coastline would be vulnerable to wind and storm surge damage from a hurricane, MacDonald notes. Seniors in Wareham’s mobile-home parks could face threats to their safety. And in Mattapoisett, Lorenco said seniors who live off of coastal Angelica Avenue could get cut off from emergency services should a hurricane inundate that street.
Danger of storms and sea surge grows stronger
Climate change’s effects are increasing the risk of damage from hurricanes. While hurricanes aren’t shown to be growing more common with climate change, they are growing more devastating due to sea level rise and atmospheric warming.
Sea levels in Massachusetts have already risen roughly a foot over the last century, increasing the dangers of storm surge. Already, worsening inundation damage has cost the U.S an estimated $612 billion on cleanup from eight destructive hurricanes from 2017 to 2022.
Sea levels along the South Coast are projected to rise roughly another 1½ to 2½ feet by 2050 if the world continues on its current high-emissions pathway, per estimates from the City of New Bedford and a report from the Trustees of Reservations and Woods Hole Group,
And the scientific consensus thus far shows that atmospheric warming may make hurricanes in the Atlantic stronger and wetter. As hurricanes travel over surface waters, they collect airborne moisture and ocean heat, which causes them to intensify.
With two degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming, the average hurricane intensity is projected to increase 3% on average, while about 13% more of the hurricanes that do form will grow to become Category 4 or 5 storms. Models also show storms will become wetter with two degrees of warming, with an increase in rainfall of 10 to 15%, as evaporation off the Atlantic Ocean grows.
How to prepare
Residents should prepare to be without power for anywhere from three days to a couple of weeks after a hurricane, emergency managers said. Emergency response times will be delayed as recovery crews travel to the area.
“I think the taxpayer always thinks they’re gonna see a response like they’d see in New York City, [where] we pull up with 15 fire trucks and 25 ambulances, all these tree crews,” Correia said. “But we just don’t have those resources immediately available.”
Nobrega and MacDonald advised residents to subscribe to their local reverse-911 programs and know their hurricane evacuation zone. They added that residents who live in an area that may have to evacuate should have a plan, including an evacuation route and a shelter.
Vieira said that residents should have a hurricane kit ready to go. It should include a month’s supply of medication, important documents and contacts, and enough non-perishable food and water to get through a few weeks. He added that residents should also keep portable light sources on hand, and secure their campers or RVs in advance of the storm.
Correia said that residents of Fairhaven’s West Island and Sconticut Neck should also remember to pick up their hurricane passes, which will allow them to go through a security checkpoint and return to their homes quickly after the storm passes.
“If you look in recent years, and you see the storms that have made landfall and the devastation in any of these places, it’s the worst possible case,” MacDonald said. “So prepare for something like that. Even if it never comes, that one time it does happen, you will be thankful that you did the work.”
Email reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@newbedfordlight.org.
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Offshore wind construction has already started in hurricane-prone New England waters. The question remains if 1000-foot wind turbines withstand 3 hours of over 100-mile-per-hour winds. The wind speeds at 1000 feet are much higher than those at sea level.