One year later, Post Island homeowners still rebuilding after storm

March 23-- Mar. 23--QUINCY -- The small brick and clapboard cottage that sat steps from the waterfront on Post Island Road was supposed to be a peaceful place for Ruth and Kenneth Kan to live out their retirement.

Ruth Kan said she fell in love with the house the moment she stumbled upon the real estate listing in 2015. She and her husband bought the house and moved in that October.

"Then, I loved the neighborhood and the peaceful view, thinking this is where I would love to spend the remaining time in my life," she said.

But now, standing inside the gutted interior of a new house being constructed where the cottage once stood, Ruth Kan said she wonders if she will get a chance to do that. She is fighting metastatic breast cancer and, like many of her neighbors, she hasn't been home in more than a year.

The Kans' home was among the more than 200 Adams Shore and Houghs Neck homes damaged or destroyed March 2, 2018, when a coastal storm sent 8 feet of floodwaters over the sea wall onto neighborhood roads. Seawater filled basements and living rooms and hurricane-force winds stripped off roof shingles and toppled trees.

The storm, which didn't end until the following day, left 150 people homeless, most of them temporarily. But more than a year later, a dozen homeowners in and around Post Island Road are still unable to move back home because of flood insurance issues and construction delays due to a six-month lockout of National Grid utility workers.

The storm was the first and worst of three nor'easters to slam the coastline that month, and resulted in more destruction than neighbors in the Post Island Road area of Adams Shore had ever seen. Of the eight homes Quincy's building department said were substantially destroyed by floodwaters in the storm, six are in the Post Island neighborhood.

The Houghs Neck peninsula was without power and inaccessible from the mainland for days. Inflatable dinghies, Quincy Department of Public Works front-loaders and National Guard high-water vehicles were used to rescue people stranded inside their homes by flooding. The city evacuated roughly 150 residents, including the Kans, and it took nearly two days for floodwaters to recede.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, the city dedicated $1 million from its affordable housing trust fund to cover temporary housing for people displaced by the storm and provide grants and loans to help residents pay for repairs, Christopher Walker, chief of staff to Mayor Thomas Koch, said.

Two-hundred-and-four families applied for aid through Quincy's disaster relief program. Of that, 64 households received grants for home repairs, a total of $414,265. Another 12 households received loans for home repairs totaling $292,762. The city also spent $211,230 on temporary housing for displaced residents, most of whom made other arrangements within four months.

But more than 12 months later, there are residents still dealing with contractors and flood insurance adjusters or trying to put together loans to pay for the work necessary to get back into their homes.

"Those of us who are still out of our homes, we're still paying taxes, insurance and some of us have had to pay additional rent to live someplace else and deal with the added stress of that," Post Island resident Mike Cotter said. "It's been a long, long process with a lot of extra stress financially and a lot of steps dealing with both FEMA and the small business admin for a loan."

Unlike the Kans, Cotter and his wife, Cyndy, had flood insurance, which Cotter said has helped them pay to elevate their house another 5 feet above base flood level and cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

"Without it, we'd be ruined," he said.

Cotter's mother in-law lived down the street and also had flooding last March. She didn't have flood insurance and now the family is selling the home they've owned for decades because they can't shoulder the cost of paying for repairs, Cotter said.

Mortgage lenders require homeowners to take out flood insurance policies if they live in a flood zone. The Kans, who had paid off the mortgage on their home the year before, canceled their flood insurance. Kenneth Kan said he and his wife have had to pay for demolishing and rebuilding their home on their own and take on debt after working all their lives to be debt-free, he said.

"I didn't anticipate this and it was a bad lesson to learn," Kenneth Kan said.

But what some homeowners are finding is that even with flood insurance, the payout isn't always enough.

Lori Wright had to strip the entire first floor of her Lee Street home. She was at work on Crown Colony Drive the day of the storm and said she wasn't worried about the warnings of potential flooding because her Lee Street home sits along the dike in Houghs Neck about a quarter-mile from the bay. Then a friend texted her a Patriot Ledger photo showing her neighbor being rescued by boat. In the background she saw her house with water above the level of the windows.

Floodwaters wreaked havoc on her house and she's had to elevate it 5 feet to protect against future flood damage. In all, Wright said, repairs are costing her about $190,000. So far she's received $93,000 from her flood insurance policy.

"We're hoping to get it to a point where we can live in it," Wright said of her house, which is still down to the studs. Contractors are at a standstill until she gets her gas turned on, something she's been waiting for for months. National Grid is still playing catch-up after workers were locked out for six months last year. Though they've been back on the job since January, Wright said she's been told the wait list extends well into spring.

In the meantime, Wright, her husband and their three cats have bounced around between hotel rooms and relatives' homes, finally settling in a one-bedroom apartment on Sea Street. Every penny is going toward getting back into their home.

"Our biggest fear is that we just aren't going to be able to finish because we run out of money," she said.

It's the fear of running out of cash that has kept Karen Albanese from even starting renovations.

She needs to elevate her house 4 or 5 feet and completely renovate the first floor. She's received less than half of what her total construction costs will be in flood insurance payouts.

"I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. The thought of not getting back into my home makes me want to cry," she said.

Joe Rossi, chairman of the Massachusetts Coastal Coalition and a flood specialist with Rogers & Gray, said many homeowners simply don't understand the limitations of their coverage, which can be devastating if they fall victim to flooding.

"Unfortunately, a lot of people just want what the lender requires and that's why we remind people that the lender is not always looking out for their best interests, and what the lender is requiring most often is not going to make you whole after a flood," he said.

The losses go beyond the physical buildings; homeowners say the loss of heirlooms and memorabilia can be difficult.

Ruth Kan's eyes brimmed with tears as she talked about the family photographs she had stored in her basement that were destroyed in the storm. For Cotter, whose family has lived in the Post Island neighborhood for generations, it was about seeing the familiar get washed away.

"It's pretty devastating to go into your home, what was your life, and see all your stuff gone, ripped out," Cotter said. "That's been the hardest thing for our family."

Despite the losses, the allure of waterfront living is strong and longtime residents of Post Island Road like Cotter and Albanese said they are determined to rebuild. The Post Island Neighborhood Association rallied in the months after the storm, lobbying for better protections against what they see as a mounting battle against rising sea levels and climate change.

A group of Post Island Road neighbors has been instrumental in the redesign of a sea wall that will replace and increase the height of the crumbling decades-old wall that stands as the sole barrier between the sea and the homes that dot the coast. They've also made strides toward addressing other flood protections like new tidal gates for a marsh that borders the neighborhood and improvements to a pumping station that failed during last March's storm.

"We want to save our neighborhood of Post Island and live here as long as we can, but there's a real danger," Cotter said. "Hopefully in the future, we'll be much more prepared."

Reach Erin Tiernan at [email protected] or 617-786-7320. Follow her on Twitter @ErinTiernan.

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