Officials struggle to pump out water from waterlogged Nahant

NAHANT, Mass. — While some cities and towns are beginning to assess the damage caused by the storm, the town of Nahant is still waiting for the floodwaters to recede.

Dozens of homes were waterlogged on Sunday night as officials did their best to pump water back out to sea. They say they've been using every pump they can get a hold of.

Many residents have fled their homes with no current perspective of when they may be returning.

"We're just praying high tide doesn't bring the ferocity that the last three or four high tides have," said Nancy Nicosia, a Nahant resident. "They hit the seawall, they go up and the house shakes, the pictures on the wall tilt."

Nicosia says she's never seen anything quite like this storm, where pieces of waterfront properties and chunks of concrete seawall continue to be swallowed up in the pounding surf.

"it's unrelenting, it just keeps going," said Nicosia. "There are rocks that are too heavy for me to lift and that's what the sea has thrown up."

The mess of debris and water definitely don't make cleanup easy for the crews in Nahant. Nevertheless, the efforts to send these floodwaters back to sea are now going non-stop so residents can return to their homes.

Jim Godwin, a Nahant resident who's been stripped of heat and hot water, is dealing with more than a foot of standing water inside his home.

"If they don't move it, it could be a few weeks it sounds like, that's not good," said Godwin.

The dangerous tides, however, haven't receded enough to give residents some peace of mind, and the possibility of another storm mid-week isn't making anyone feel any safer.

Cox Media Group