If January taught us anything, it’s that the power of an ocean storm during a record-setting high tide is not to be denied, especially when a southeast wind gets behind it.

Walkways, lifeguard chairs and other detritus scattered by the surf well above the usual high tide line at Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth on January 14, the day after the second coastal storm.

Last month two huge storms roared into Maine a few days apart. In addition to record high tides that caused flooding along the coast, the first one also pushed rivers in central Maine over their banks.  I haven’t seen that damage first hand, but many homes and businesses along the Kennebec, the Androscoggin and the Sandy Rivers (among others) sustained a lot of damage.

The January 13 storm is the one coastal residents will remember. Surging surf heaved huge rocks into dooryards of homes on Peaks Island’s back shore and destroyed stretches of the asphalt roadway. Historic, unoccupied fish houses washed off the rocks at Willard Beach in South Portland, and working shacks full of gear wound up floating in harbors along the Midcoast.

The path to Scarborough Beach was impassable on January 14, flooded by the marsh ponds following two massive storms.

Multiple harbors Downeast took a direct hit, including the state’s largest lobster port of Stonington, where the sea damaged commercial wharves, tossing heavy-duty deck boards about as though they were pickup sticks.

As has been reported widely, beaches across southern Maine were decimated, including the ones that we visit on our #SundayBeachWalks.

Weeks later, they’re still covered by tons of rock that replaced sand the sea scoured away.

The dunes at Scarborough Beach were inundated by the churning surf, resulting in the face of the dune being at least 20 feet back from where it was in December. Remnants of the decimated vegetation are visible in this photo,

In Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, well-established dunes were muscled aside by storm surges. Their ocean-facing edges were forced to retreat by relentless waves that ripped beach grass out by the roots. The damage will impact the birds and many other species that thrive in fragile coastal habitats.

An area of dune grass at Crescent Beach that managed to hang on. The shore was strewn with clumps this size that were wrenched out by their roots.

If, like us, you want to be part of the addressing the impact of these recent storms in particular, and the effects of climate change along the Maine coast in general, please consider supporting the Island Institute.

On its website,  https://www.islandinstitute.org/ there’s a plethora of information about the steps being taken to build more resilient infrastructure in Maine’s coastal communities. The Institute also is taking donations, if you’re so inclined, to support the many hard-hit communities critical to the health of Maine’s coastal economy.

As a writer I admire often says, we’re in this together.

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels in and around Portland. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. An attorney since 1990, Brenda currently is writing a series about a criminal defense lawyer who takes on cases others won’t touch in the hometown to which she swore she’d never return. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Her story Assumptions Can Get You Killed appears in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023.