Providence Journal photo / Frieda Squires
Bryan Oakley, a University of Rhode Island researcher and visiting professor at Eastern Connecticut State, is part of a team that has been monitoring erosion on Charlestown Beach for decades.
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Bryan Oakley stands in the middle of Charlestown Beach, not far from a small cottage swept off its pilings by superstorm Sandy, and holds his hand up in the air.
"We would have had sand over our heads here," he says, describing how the beach looked before the hurricane-turned-superstorm struck. "This is pretty wild."
If Oakley is impressed, it means something. He and his fellow researchers in the geology department at the University of Rhode Island have been measuring, sketching and photographing this spot weekly since the late 1970s to better understand erosion.
Sandy has renewed attention on the sustainability of oceanfront communities in the face of rising sea levels and projections that climate change will bring more severe hurricanes.
"Any time we have an event like this people need to take pause," says Grover Fugate, executive director of the state Coastal Resources Management Council, which regulates construction near the ocean. "It certainly is a warning bell. We need to start looking at the long term."
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