Shelter Island Reporter

We have lived on our island since the Dutch and English discovered it. The Dutch lived on the western end first. Soon after, the English families from New England settled our two forks. Yes, there have been many severe storms and a few hurricanes since then. The most noticeable effect of these has been the severe erosion of our South Fork beaches.

The fort ruins near Gardiners Island are now nearly flooded over at high tides. The 45-foot stone lighthouse on the sand bar from north of Gardiners Island to the flooded ruins has been gone and flooded over for more than 100 years. It was closed after the blizzard of 1888.

Now and in years past we find severe erosion all around Montauk Lighthouse, due to a warmer and increasingly violent ocean. As we have been told, the ocean level is higher and rising, as are our temperatures and precipitation ” minor and microscopic in amounts, but higher nonetheless. The Atlantic is also one degree warmer than in the 1920s, and  1 inch higher.

Now, in the year 2009, farming is fast giving way to million-dollar homes ” inland and on the coast.

With many wanting to be in their homes on the dunes or right in back of them, Miss Atlantic is saying NO, but we do not pay attention. We build and lose. We have been doing this since World War I.

At this writing near the end of 2009, I feel compelled to inform the public that because of a slow rise in temperature and precipitation and the future number of tropical disturbances, the Atlantic Ocean will become higher in times of tropical disturbances.

Our sand dunes will always move landward, houses or not, because of our prevailing southwest wind. During a severe storm, houses and dunes will disappear. Nature will always make a beach and rebuild its dunes if man does not interfere.

Millions of tons of oceanfront sand, our beaches, move westward each year, to the channel to New York City Harbor. This is all from our Long Islands south shore beach. Foresight in future building in this area is a must.

As of  a November 15 visit to Bridgehamptons Ocean Road Beach, the bases to the World War II Lookout Towers, built at the end of Ocean Road in 1942, are now in the oceans roaring surf!