I missed the storm last weekend in Rhode Island...I was in the heartland, but was in Rhode Island last night. The combinations of the storm surge and swell reached up into the edge of the brush on this rocky coast...higher than Cat 3 Hurricane Bob in 1991...I just happened to be there for Bob...the eye passed right over. The reason last weekend's storm was higher is that Bob peaked about 2 or 3 hours before high tide, while this storm was going strong at high tide. Also, the cove where I spend time is open to the ocean to the south...the winds of Bob were from the east, then the eye, then the west. Also, the wind field of a hurricane generally covers a (much) smaller area than a winter type storm. The road connecting the 2 parts of the island (Conanicut/Jamestown) was completely washed over. 7 children were killed there in their school bus during the 1938 hurricane....which was travelling 60 miles/hour...so the storm surge arrived at 60 miles/hour. My extended family has a dock in the cove, which was lightly damaged. The other substantial dock was mostly destroyed. Luckily for us, our dock was damaged by age/worms....but a scene of a film was filmed there a month ago and they paid to partially repair it. This may have prevented it from being heavily damaged. The previous dock was in bad shape in 1985 when hurricane Gloria finished it off.
Wish I could have seen the storm...would have been tres cool. By the way, the relative sea level is noticeably higher on the rocks than when I was a kid....maybe 10 or 15 cm...this is also measured by tide guage at Newport...not a big deal for us on rocky coast but is a big deal for those on barrier beaches...
Chris