S/V The Artful Dodger II

Storm Surge

On the 5th of February there had been a Blizzard warning issued for St John's Newfoundland and area. The one thing that was not forcasted was a Storm surge from the ocean. At around 8:30 at night we were watching a movie when I heard what I thought was a machine gun going off. When I got out of the boat to investigate I found chunks of ice and debris around the boats and water coming up between the boards of the dock, the slapping noise giving the sound effect of rapid gun fire. The sea had come into appoint where the water was coming over the dock. I also noticed water was up a couple of inches on the tires of our car. Starting to scan around the harbour to see the real story I had noticed Gray's stage behind me, I could see his boat as it is always hauled up; at first it never registered but as I looked longer I realized his cabin was gone, washed away.

If you click on the pictures they enlarge








here in this picture you can see Gray's cabin to the left, the white building











In this picture I took today, after the storm there is no cabin, boat or ramp all gone washed away by the sea surge.












In this picture you can see two cabins in the right side of the picture, a white one and a green one.















This pictures shows no white cabin and the front part of the green cabin gone as well.

This roof in the water is from the white cabin in the previous picture

here you have a better picture of the white cabins roof and hydro stack

In this picture you can see that there is only steps to cabin and no stage

another picture of green cabin and the settling sea surge

this picture now shows the white roof again but now its hitting into another dock and deck, before it was washed out to sea did make some damage

there is debris here between the two stages

further debris

sea finally starting to abate

This is all that is left of Grey's stage his out house floating on its platform, held by anchor in the water.

This has to been one of the most wild things I've ever see or been involved in. While standing on the dock beside our sail boat, water was washing in over the dock to a height of up to my knees. Still standing on the dock at the highest sea surge at 10:30 the boat was so high I could put my hand on the boot strap, which is where the water line is on the boat. I must say to hold back 10 tons of a boat, could not have been able without the way the dock lines had been tied. The other interesting thing was at the same time our car was on the dock but floating, water was up half way on the doors. When the surge went down I moved the car more up on the dock. The evening started at 8:30 and went to 3:30 in the morning, it was a very active night keeping the boat off the dock and keeping all the floating deadheads from causing damage to our boat/home.

This dock although it never got washed out is damaged as all the other docks here in the gute.

In the four winters our boat has been tied here to the dock beside the brewery this has been the most distructive, glad we are pushing on in a number of weeks to warmer weather and most likely more adventerous times.