Surf Check: Cape Cod

The Cape's first real snow of the year merits a surf check, even if coastal flooding was not expected. 

This is especially true if you go at low tide, like we did.

I work for a church in December, it lowers my availability, which is why we went to weaker-surf beaches at low tide rather than superheavyweights like Eastham or Duxbury at high tide.

We started at Town Neck Beach in Sandwich. We were also shooting from the Drunken Seal, because reasons.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we also checked out Sagamore Beach.

Nothing catastrophic, but a nice mini road trip.

Note the difference between Sagamore Beach, above, and Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, below.

Top Car Crash Locations On Cape Cod

Cape Cod is very traffic-driven, as most tourist places tend to be. I lived in Duxbury and Monponsett, and neither one counted traffic as a major town issue. Bourne, where I live now, is dominated by our traffic. Our traffic dictates how residents live their lives on several days of the week, especially in summer.

Our traffic is unique compared to other towns, in that we get people from other states in large volume. Pull out onto Rte. 28, and you'll be surrounded by Massholes,  smattering of New Yorkers, some Connecticuts, a few northern Yankees, and a mixed nuts ensemble of people from various other states and countries.

These people are dumped onto a variety of Suicide Alleys, make-your-own-law rotaries, narrow bridges, visibility-cluttering business districts and windy cow paths.

Of course they are going to crash into each other now and then.

The Cape Cod Commission was nice enough to post some stats on accidents that occur on Cape Cod roads. They gathered stats by Number Of Accidents, Property Damage, Crash Rate and Property Damage rate. Long story short, they tell you where you are most likely to have an accident on Cape Cod.

The info is old (2010, updated  in 2012), so take anything we say here more as a guideline than as current, absolute truth. The numbers themselves are small enough that a good multiple car crash or two could suddenly jack a middling contender up the rankings into a Trump-like leadership slot.

Rather than slogging through 100 entries with me trying to riff on particular roads, we'll just cherry-pick good stuff for you.

- Remember, the Cape and Islands lay claim to one of America's most notorious car crashes... the Chappaquidick bridge departure that essentially put a ceiling of "Senator" on post-JFK Camelot.

- I don't know which car crash would be the most notorious in American history.

James Dean's death was huge. Jayne Mansfield's scalping is why those little bars on the lower rear end of big trucks are called "Mansfield bars." Lady Diana ate some car parts as a last meal, but that was in Old England (editor's note: France), not New England.

I'm sure that if some drunk smashed into a church group bus somewhere sometime, that would get up in the rankings, even sans celebrities. I know what "affluenza" is because of a car crash.

Sam Kinison died in a car wreck, as did Paul Walker. Dale Earnhardt Sr. (even I, a non-NASCAR fan, refer to this man conversationally as "Dale Senior") and Kenny Irwin Jr also died in the saddle.

Any Southern snowfall threatens to add to the list.

- I also found this map with little dots representing car crashes. Just looking at that, you get the sense that the worst spot is the run of Route 28 from Falmouth through Yarmouth. Hyannis, which actually owns cluster-dots, rules the roost.

- Suicide Alley is not impressive at all on this map.

- I consider shattered brake light glass to be a viable addition to a sea-glass collection, as long as the glass somehow made it to the ocean and then the beach somehow.

- These maps need to be viewed in the Gestalt to get the true vibe. There are differences between a love tap and a crash that, say, drowns your secretary. There are also highly-used roads that have lots of accidents, but you then see side streets representing hard if they feature a tricky intersection.

- No one, to my knowledge, has managed to drive off of the Sagamore or Bourne Bridges. Some old-schooler may be able to contest this claim, however.

- Our leader for Number Of Crashes is Route 6, the Mid-Cape Highway. Various sections of this road hold #1,4,5,6 and 7 spots in the Total Crashes rankings.

- Exit 6 on Route 6 (sorry, I don't know which direction) had 128 crashes in this period of measurement. The next highest, Exit 9, only had 99. You're dropping into the 50s and 40s before you leave the top fifteen.

- Bourne, which is the feeder tube for Cape Cod, represents hard. This is even more of a truth when you start getting into Rates rather than Totals. Bourne has the #3, 8, 9 and 13 spots in Number Of Crashes rankings. Her spot with the most crashes is the Otis Rotary.

- I could be wrong, but the rotary Most Crash rankings go the Otis Rotary, the Bourne Bridge Rotary, the Belmont Circle Rotary (Bourne owns the top 3 most dangerous rotaries on Cabo Coddo), the Airport Rotary and the Eastham Rotary.

- Sandwich Road is a dangerous place, even after I realize that there's one in Falmouth, too.

- Yarmouth moves up in the rankings once you factor in property damage costs. Hyannis and Bourne wreck more cars, but the outer Cape wrecks nicer cars.

- Property damage costs also may be where Suicide Alley asserts herself. They only had 36 deaths there in 10 years or so, but they were head-on, total-the-car sort of deaths. I don't have a Fatality list for all of Cape Cod, which is where Sue might also assert herself.

-  Crash Rate is where the rankings get shook up. It is my opinion- and remember, I just started studying this stuff a few hours ago- that Crash Rate is the best indicator of a dangerous road. Busier roads have more accidents, but they might not be as dangerous.

- The Otis Rotary seizes the top spot for Crash Rate, knocking Exit/Route 6 down to 3rd place. Little-used (17 accidents) Route 39 is second. Route 124 is 5th.

- The exit in Sandwich at Chase Road, #9 in property damage totals, is just #47 in crash rate.

- The worst crash I ever saw was the fuel truck that flipped over into the Bourne Rotary last winter. It had the huge-truck-crashing props, as well as the spilled-fuel aspect. I only moved down here in 2005, though.

- Feel free to tell us about the worst accident you have ever seen on Cape Cod in the comments below.

Visit Your Local Salvation Army Kettle

The Salvation Army has people working kettles all over the Upper Cape. Locations include:

Market Basket, Sagamore
Stop and Shop, Wareham
Stop and Shop, Sandwich
Stop and Shop, Mashpee
Cape Cod Mall, Hyannis

Note that the Sandwich Stop and Shop kettle is worked entirely by Cranberry County Magazine staff. Stephen has it Friday, J works Saturday, Stephen does the following Monday through Friday, J does Saturday and Stephen works it Christmas Eve. You may even get to see Abdullah, Stacey or Teresa, if you show up at the right time.

Stephen looks like a menacing homeless man, but he's mostly harmless unless you try to grab the kettle.

The Salvation Army helps poor people in many ways, including food, shelter, clothing and Christmas gifts for needy kids.

The kettles will be out until 1-2 PM on Christmas Eve, and 10/10:30 AM to 5/6 PM Monday thru Saturday.

Come on down and bless the kettles!

Hurricane Inundation Map: Hyannis

The maps are a bit blurry, because they download poorly and we were forced to take pictures of the monitor.

They work like this...

Any area that is colored in means that inundation is possible during a hurricane. FEMA estimates as to what hurricane intensity would be needed to flood certain spots are shown by color differencs.

Light green = Category 1

Dark green = Category 2

Yellow = Category 3

Red = Category 4

Click on the map to zoom in.