Beach find: Buried cars rise with tide
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. – You never know what the tide is going to turn up. Erosion on the Water Mill, N.Y., shore in mid-March turned up a number of old…
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. – You never know what the tide is going to turn up. Erosion on the Water Mill, N.Y., shore in mid-March turned up a number of old rusted and twisted cars, which — while still intact — had been placed there to build up the dunes decades ago.
Southampton Town Trustee Fred Havemeyer told news reporters, “They started to show on Saturday afternoon [March 10], and by Monday morning they were full-blown exposed.”
A nor’easter moving through the area over three days, plus the perigean tide — the spring tide when the moon is closest to earth — contributed to the erosion, Havemeyer told News Day.
He estimates the cars must have been placed prior to 1984. However, he was not sure if it was a few years prior or a couple decades.
The Southampton Town Trustees’ Facebook page reminds us: “Before people began using snow fences and Christmas trees to protect beaches, towns used to use old cars as a form of erosion control.”
