Week In Review: Hurricane And A Helicopter

Update: SK Bounces Back After Hurricane Irene

Despite being downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm before making landfall in Rhode Island, Irene still wreaked a little havoc on the state’s south coast, toppling trees, downing power lines to cause widespread blackouts across South Kingstown and flooding ocean-side roadways.

One day later at 4 p.m., with flood waters receded, road crews still scrambled to remove debris from state properties and roads as National Grid continues to combat problems with its grid that still leave 9,550 South Kingstown residents and more than 58 percent of all Rhode Islanders in the dark. National Grid provides electricity to about 14,300 South Kingstown customers and more than 480,000 throughout the state. Read more...

Following what many communities have already executed, the South Kingstown School Department has pushed its opening day from Thursday, September 1 to Tuesday, September 6 after the Labor Day weekend.

This is the third re-schedule since Hurricane Irene barreled into New England with winds gusts of over 65 miles per hour, causing thousands of trees and limbs to fall onto power lines and roads.  The damage has caused the school system to place safety over expediency in opening schools for the year, according to Executive Assistant Mary-Ellen Murano of the South Kingstown School Department.

The latest decision was handed down around 11:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, with Murano stating that town officials have not reported any improvements to the town's roadways since Tuesday. Friday was scheduled as a no school day on the school calendar, solidifying the department's decision to move to September 6. Read more...

Beaches in Narragansett, South Kingstown and Charlestown were lowered by about four feet due to the erosion of sand by Hurricane Irene, but a researcher at the University of Rhode Island said that beach erosion was considerably less than had been feared.

“The volume of change did not approach the magnitude of what happened during Hurricane Bob,” said Jon Boothroyd, URI emeritus professor of geosciences, who has monitored erosion on Rhode Island beaches since 1977.  “Some of the displaced sand went over the top dunes and was deposited in the beach driveways and parking lots.  Some sand went offshore, but some of that will come back.”

He said that municipal workers in the area are already collecting sand from some of the beach parking lots and preparing to return it to the beaches. Read more...

While it may not have revealed the pockets of devastation some may have expected to see, a ride in an Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopter gave state officials and some media members an unusual tour of the Ocean State. See the video...