A Massachusetts beach community is scrambling after a weekend storm washed away mountains of sand trucked in for a nearly $600,000 dune that was meant to protect homes, roads and other infrastructure. The project, which brought in 14,000 tons of sand over several weeks in Salisbury, was completed just three days before Sunday's storm clobbered southern New England with strong winds, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding.
The Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change group, which facilitated the project and helped raise funds, posted on social media about the project's completion last week and then again after the storm. They argued the project still was worthwhile, noting that"the sacrificial dunes did their job" and protected some properties from being"eaten up" by the storm. It's the latest round of severe storms in the community and across Massachusetts, which already suffered flooding, erosion and infrastructure damage in January. Sand replenishment has been the government's go-to method of shore protection for decade