It’s no longer unusual to see a kayaker paddling along downtown Easy Street. The cobblestones along the town’s waterfront once were flooded a handful of times a year. That rose to an average of 37 days a year by 2020, according to tide gauge monitors by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The next year, Nantucket began taking steps to beat the tide.

Town and county officials cooperated on a coastal resilience plan in 2021 following an island-wide risk assessment that found four major concerns: groundwater table rise, coastal flooding, high tide flooding and coastal erosion. The 270-page report was more than timely: Easy Street was flooded a record 75 days in 2023.

The resilience plan is simple in theory and challenging in execution, given the island’s mix, Hill said. It is based on three strategies. “Protect (keep water out), adapt (live with water), retreat (move away from water),” according to Hill’s email. “Depending on which critical infrastructure is at risk depends on which strategy is recommended.”

Hill said that the coastal resilience plan will assess risks every five to 10 years. The plan so far has identified 40 proposed projects over the next 15 years at a cost of $930 million—and Hill noted that if nothing is done to fight sea level rise, Nantucket anticipates damages totaling $3.4 billion through 2070.

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