Three homes on Salt Marsh Road in Sandwich collapsed during Monday's nor'easter, renewing focus on the beach erosion plaguing the area.
As of Wednesday, one of the three homes had already been torn down.
Sandwich Assistant Town Manager Heather Harper said the area has been compromised for some time.
"Really, in any given storm, those properties have some degree of risk. We monitor them actively," she said.
Josh Wrigley, the town's conservation agent, said Monday's storm — which pounded area beaches with a 10-foot tidal surge and 35-mile-per-hour winds — wasn't even as bad as some others, including in March 2018, when a 15-foot tidal surge and 80-mile-per-hour winds hammered the town's barrier beaches.
"I think there's a lot of concern right now for the future of that area and and what can be done. But that really remains to be seen," he said.
Wrigley said the beach erosion in Sandwich can be traced to the longshore drift, a geological process that usually brings sediments down the coastline, parallel to the beach. That sediment protects beaches from erosion and this is not happening along the Sandwich shoreline.
"In Sandwich, we don't really have that deposition and so for areas like Salt Marsh Road, which are on a barrier beach, when there is a storm event and you have that erosion, it tends to just get worse and worse."
Town officials are pinning their hopes on the federal government to fix the problem. Harper said the town has been working for the better part of a decade with the Army Corps of Engineers. Last fall, the Army Corps presented its long-awaited study on beach erosion to the town selectmen. The study found that jetties along the Cape Cod Canal are largely responsible for the rapid erosion and estimates that more than a foot of shoreline is being lost every year.
The report recommends that more than $12 million worth of sand be deposited off the Sandwich coast. Funding has not been secured. Still, Harper called it good progress and said the town remains hopeful.
In the meantime, homeowners on Salt Marsh Road are holding their breath. Harper said many of the properties are summer homes that have been in families for generations.
"People come back year after year and enjoy it. So, it's pretty heart wrenching to see those homes lost," Harper said.
