Across the New England coastline, beachfront homeowners are noticing a similar pattern: sea levels are rising quickly and storms are becoming more severe, putting their properties and communities at risk of flooding. 

 

In response to the threat, residents of Nahant — a seaside town 40 minutes north of Boston — have taken matters into their own hands, constructing seawalls and raising awareness to protect their coastal home.

 

“If I had known about sea level rise 23 years ago, I wouldn’t have moved here,” said Dave Aldrich, who purchased his home on Tudor Beach in 1998. “It ate into a severe amount of our retirement to do this, but it’s the asset that you’re protecting.” 

 

When rising tides and worsening storm surges began flooding his backyard and neighborhood, Aldrich opted to construct his own seawall in 2019. After 18 months working through regulations and permits - a process which was complicated by the pandemic - Aldrich broke ground on his coastal armoring project in October. Three days later, his beachside home and 13 others nearby were safe from coastal flooding.

 

But, while Aldrich was able to invest in a seawall to protect his property and the adjacent buildings, that isn’t an accessible option for every home in Nahant. Licensing, for example, is a crucial -- and challenging -- part of the seawall building process.

 

Enzo Barile, a former Nahant selectman and automotive technician with a background in coastal armoring policy, says building a seawall isn’t as simple as finding funding and building it yourself. 

 

“You can’t build a seawall,” he said at Nahant’s Short Beach. “In ‘78 or ‘80, they came up with the rules. You’re not supposed to armor the coast without proper licensing.”

 

Barile, who has lived in Nahant his whole life, believes in a collective approach to coastal armoring, rather than the construction of individual seawalls along private property. 

 

“We have a lot, a lot of grant money out there for that you have to apply for,” he said, “and I think the town administrator now, he's got a couple of different things. There's a committee, we put a committee together. And we got some good stuff. Yeah, there's money out there. It's a lot easier to get a license when you go through the state.”

 

Coastal flooding isn’t a new challenge for this community. In fact, the residents of Nahant have been dealing with the impact of worsened flooding for decades — including in 1978, when a massive nor’easter storm swept through Massachusetts and left its mark on Nahant.

 

The unexpected snow storm lasted over 30 hours, cutting the small, seaside community off from much-needed medical care, groceries and supplies in one of the most destructive weather events to hit Nahant. Residents were trapped for days, with nearly 27 inches of snow and ice burying the causeway - the only way in and out to the island besides ferry - and water flooding their homes. 

 

The town also survived a destructive set of back-to-back nor’easters in March 2018. The storms hit two days apart, giving the town no time to recover, and pummeling existing seawalls with waves nearly 30 feet high. Paired with a high tide and 90 mile-per-hour winds, the impact was devastating. 

 

“You can’t see anything,” Aldrich said about living on the coast during these storms. He recalled the experience of staying up all night as the storms hit, knowing that foundation of your home 

and those around you could succumb to powerful seawater at any moment. 

 

“All you can hear is the force of the wind and you can hear the waves hitting the walls. You just think, what’s it going to be like in the morning?” 

 

Years later, residents of Nahant are still working to make improvements to their homes — such as building their own revetments — in order to protect themselves, their families and the community.

 

Coastal flooding like the kind Aldrich has seen in Nahant is not likely to go away anytime soon. Thanks to climate change, scientists predict that sea levels will continue to rise well into the next century, and small, coastal communities like Nahant are directly in the line of fire.

 

“What we expect to see in this part of the world is about just shy of a foot, 9 to 11 inches by 2050,” says Baylor Fox-Kemper, a professor at Brown University and expert on sea level rise. In September, Fox-Kemper was a lead author on the subject in a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

 

While coastal armoring can protect property in the short-term, Fox-Kemper argues that seawalls are just a temporary fix. According to his research, and the scientific consensus, the only way to mitigate the effects of sea level rise is to slow it down altogether by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

 

Lower emissions, says Fox-Kemper, could mean the difference between 1 to 2 feet and 2 to 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100 — measurements that may seem small, but would have catastrophic results. 

 

The construction of seawalls may also have adverse effects. Some research has pointed to the role of seawalls in accelerating coastal erosion and contributing to beach loss. The issue is complex, Fox-Kemper says, but researchers are beginning to understand that seawalls can alter natural wave patterns and the way that sand is transported along coastlines and beaches. 

 

“When a wave hits a solid wall, it's very different from a wave breaking down a beach,” he said on a Zoom call, “and that is very different in how it transports sand. The erosion patterns are really different.” 

 

Scientists aren’t the only ones observing this change. People living in coastal communities — like Vicky Waite, a life-long resident of Nahant — have noticed a shift in their beach landscapes. 

 

When she previously owned commercial property along Nahant Road, Waite mentioned not being able to see the ocean — now she fears the coastline will eventually meet the roadway.

 

On the other end of the island near Northeastern University's Marine Science Center, which looks out over Nahant's Canoe Beach, the beach has eroded over time. 

 

Regardless of their opinions on seawalls, one thing is clear to all Nahant’s residents: protecting their community from climate change, sea level rise and coastal flooding needs to be a priority.

 

After all, as Barile said, “You can’t stop the Atlantic Ocean.”