Crews continue cleanup efforts from coastal winter storm damage continues
Crews are still dealing with historic coastal damage from fierce winter nor'easters and extreme tides.
Much of the damage was apparent right away, but some is still playing out, like the road collapsing around a storm drain on Ocean Boulevard in Hampton.
Officials said the erosion from so much water flow was just one of the issues that Seacoast crews are facing.
The repairs and cleanup come as Memorial Day is fast approaching.
“You can see what it did to all these big rock walls,” said Dave Succi, the Rye/North Hampton foreman for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. “You really don't know until you start putting the roads back together."
A Northwood NHDOT crew is pitching in, shoring up part of Route 1-A in Rye.
“During the storms, the beach actually came right up over the road here and washed this whole side out,” said Dave Almon, Northwood foreman for NHDOT.
Crews filled under the road, then around it, covering it with erosion control matting.
They also removed tons of wave-tossed rocks.
“We've been going right from one end to the other with the excavator, just scooping up rocks that we plowed onto people's front lawns,” Almon said.
Parts of the parking lot at North Hampton State Beach were completely washed away and have been closed since. Crews on Thursday were getting ready to pave.
Ryan Lee owns The Beach Plum, which is across the street from that parking lot. Lee said he was relieved.
“Without that parking lot, we just lose a lot of traffic,” Lee said.
As the Hampton Department of Public Works crews moved sand left in its lots, a truck cleaned out catch basins clogged with sand.
“You have so much damage, undermining of the sidewalks and some of the roadways. What we'll want to do is get it safe for the motoring public and so when the tourists come down they see our best foot forward, you know,” Succi said.
Succi said Memorial Day is the target to be finished, but they still have a long way to go.