Despite hurricane force winds, nearly record-breaking tides, and a bombogenesis, Hingham emerged safely from last week’s winter storm Riley. However, the storm did raise concerns about future flooding and storm management.

The two biggest issues of this storm were the high winds and the high tides. According to The Weather Channel, Barnstable recorded wind speeds of 93 mph and Scituate recorded sustained speeds of 83 mph. The high tide in Boston, at 14.67 feet, is the third highest tide ever recorded in Boston (the first is from winter storm Grayson in January of this year and the second is from the blizzard of ‘78).

Riley began early on the morning of Friday, March 2nd, and continued overnight into March 3rd. Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant Manager Paul Heanue reported to the Hingham Journal that the first big gusts came around 6:30 a.m., which knocked down trees and poles.

“After we resolved those issues,” Heanue explained, “we were relatively quiet until about 2:30 p.m. It was busy after that. We received lots of tree-related calls.”

Thankfully, Hingham fared better than most surrounding towns, with very few residences still experiencing power outages during Saturday and Sunday as well, reported the Hingham Journal. Meanwhile, in neighboring communities across the South Shore and Massachusetts as a whole, over 300,000 homes were without power as of Saturday night.

Much of Hingham’s success was due to its quick service providers. The Hingham Journal reported that the Hingham Fire Department and Police Department answered 284 service calls and the South Shore Regional Emergency Communications Center answered about 880 calls during the storm.

The Fire and Police Departments worked tirelessly to attend to downed trees and poles, flooding, and other concerns. Hingham Fire Chief Steve Murphy remarked that “this storm was one of the busiest we have had in a while, especially Friday afternoon (after 2:30 p.m.).”

Despite the busy nature of the storm, local agencies had everything under control; they coordinated with one another and invited in outside help, like the National Grid, the National Guard, and community-based response teams.

Regardless of their preparedness, Hingham agencies and responders of course could not stop or even control the storm’s extent. Many areas of Crow Point and 3A saw extensive flooding. While newly installed “hurricane fencing” did its job to protect the parking lots of the bathing beach, other areas, including the rotary and wharfs, were completely submerged at high tide.

Due to the flooding along with hurricane force winds, many students like junior Grace Gruber believe that “we should not have had school.” Hingham Public Schools, unlike Scituate, Hull, Duxbury, Cohasset, NDA, Derby Academy, and many others, remained fully opened with no delays or early releases. For high school students, driving home was a treacherous and terrifying experience, and many had trouble getting to their homes. Other students in middle and elementary school faced similarly dangerous bus rides home.

Despite the damages recorded, Hingham made it out of this storm largely unscathed. Actually, some people gained new perspective due to the storm, like junior Julia Turnak. She said, “I gained a better understanding of what it was like for all of the people who had lost power or even their homes during the floods and hurricanes in Texas and Puerto Rico.” With this new knowledge and experience, Hingham is now more ready to face future weather disasters.