Storm response shows Md. mettle

The official word

Friday, Nov. 27, 2009

The Neeld Estate community at Plum Point along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County has endured many winter nor'easter storms and hurricanes since its establishment in the 1930s. The latest threat was Tropical Storm Ida, a slow-moving nor'easter resting at the mouth of the bay. Ida's constant winds pushed the bay waters along the western shore with great force and destructive power, eroding beaches and taking sand out to sea. At Neeld Estates, the period between low tide at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday to 12:30 a.m. on Saturday was the period of greatest danger to homes. But the power of people giving selflessly saved the five threatened dwellings.

The Meyer family, two brothers and a sister, had worked after Isabel to successfully raise and renovate their home. Thursday morning the brothers, Marty Meyer and Christopher Williams, began leading efforts to remove loose items and stairs from the beachfront to the road side of the five houses. The family sent out requests to friends and neighbors for help sandbagging the foundations. As friends of the family, my wife and I received a call from their sister, Sharon Meyer. We went home after work and changed into rubber boots and rain gear. Their neighbor, Mary Osbourn Reilly, was similarly engaged, also calling state and county agencies to ask for assistance. She is president of the Neeld Estate Community Association.

When we arrived just after sunset, Marty showed us the significant loss of beach right up to the foundations of his and two other houses and the eroded sea wall at Mary's house, which had saved the other houses from direct wave action up to now. Peggy arrived and joined the effort to use local sand to fill the sandbags. I joined the line to place the bags against the foundations. Because we did not have sufficient labor or supplies, Marty and his neighbors went in pickup trucks to Ace Hardware, which kindly stayed open to sell them 80-pound cement bags. At 11:30 p.m. we placed the last available sandbags as high tide beat against those placed earlier.

Thursday morning light arrived to find that the actions of the dozen initial responders had saved the houses during the worst of the storm's surge and winds. Reilly reached county Commissioner Barbara Stinnett, who was on the road visiting beach communities to assess their emergency response needs. She arrived at Neelds Estate and determined that this was the most affected community along the bay's shore and the in most urgent need of immediate county assistance. She called county response teams and asked commissioners' President Wilson Parran to work with state officers.

When I arrived on Thursday, more than a hundred people where involved in sandbagging, with local residents using their trucks to transport the bags to the line. Parran (D) and County Administrator Terry Shannon joined me in line passing sandbags.

Marty Meyer was taken off the line to rest, cold and exhausted. Deputy Chief Pat Hassler and his crew, Mark Tyrrell, Casey Braswell and Nick Bowen from the Prince Frederick Volunteer Fire Department, took over command of sandbag placement as waves washed over their boots.

While Hassler coordinated the strategic placement of sandbags, volunteers from the Huntingtown Volunteer Fire Department coordinated the sandbag filling area and logistics. By midnight Friday, with thousands of sand bags in place, the homes survived the next high tide.

Saturday morning, several hundred volunteers responded to complete the sandbagging effort, placing more than 8,000 sand bags along the shoreline.

One of the homeowners saved, Anne Jones, summed up the results best:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you for your tireless efforts that saved my cottage and my neighbors cottages. What an unbelievable show of love, support and muscle!" she said.

For all involved, this year's Thanksgiving will be a special celebration, of the victory over the sea made possible by many who responded to the call to action. When people ask what makes Southern Maryland such a special place to live and work, perhaps this story will be retold as an example.

Wayne Clark is the executive director of the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland. He can be reached at 301-870-2520 or wclark@tccsmd.org.