When you pulled up to the sandy parking lot at Tom’s Cove, all you saw was the dune and the open sky. The gentle whoosh of the waves spilling onto the beach was unmistakable, but you couldn’t see the water yet. First, you had to cross the gravel, pass a small lifeguard hut, and climb the glistening white sand dune, the Atlantic Ocean finally coming into view at the top.
This is what the southern tip of Assateague Island National Seashore, a national park on a long barrier island off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, looked like in September 2017. Now, only two years later, the lifeguard hut—raised on wooden piles over the beach—is gone, and the dune is so flattened that you can see the water from the lot without having to get out of the car. The seas are rising around Assateague, the barrier island is shifting toward the mainland, and each new storm risks breaching the recreational beach and washing away the parking lot.
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