Ocean Drive loops ten miles around the southern tip of Aquidneck Island from Bellevue Avenue past Bailey's Beach, Gooseberry Beach, Brenton Point, and Castle Hill to Fort Adams and the harbor. The houses along it are estates from the 1880s through the 1920s, shingle-style and stone, on large lots facing open water, with mid-century houses filling in the former estate grounds. Nothing stands between them and the Atlantic but a seawall and a lawn.
This is the shore that takes the first hit from every storm. The 1938 hurricane's surge came over the drive itself, Carol did the same in 1954, and Sandy in 2012 left the road buried in rock and sand in places. Between hurricanes, the wind off the water finds every gap in a shingle roof and freezes every pipe in an unheated wing, and many of these houses stand empty from October to May.
This site puts Ocean Drive homeowners and caretakers through by phone to an independent local water damage provider.
Sea water that came over the wall and into the ground floor or the cellar is a storm surge and coastal flood cleanup. A pipe that froze while the house was closed for the winter is a frozen pipe cleanup, and the crew asks how long it ran. Wind-driven rain under the shingles is roof leak and ice dam water damage.
Most losses on the drive are found by a caretaker weeks after they started. A house that will sit empty should have the plumbing drained or the main closed and faucets opened, and someone should walk through after every cold snap and every storm. Exterior repairs on houses inside the Ocean Drive historic district go through a review before they begin.
Call (401) 560-5802 and say how long the house was empty and whether the water is salt. An independent local water damage provider serving Ocean Drive takes the call.
Standing water pulled off wide pine boards, tile, brick, and dirt cellar floors on any level of an old Newport house, then the first moisture readings.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run by daily readings until plaster, lath, old timber, and subfloor come back to dry numbers in salt air.
Harbor or bay water that came in during a nor'easter or hurricane pumped out, contaminated material removed, and the ground floor dried.
Water pumped out of a fieldstone or rubble cellar, the source traced to a joint, a drain, or the tide, and the stone and framing above it dried.
Cleanup after a supply line froze in an uninsulated wall, a crawl space, or a shut-up summer house and split, then drying of what the thaw soaked.
A failed supply line, corroded fitting, or split radiator line shut off, the water pulled out, and the floors and plaster below it dried.
Wet attic insulation, plaster ceilings, and walls dried after a slate slipped, an ice dam backed up at the eave, or a nor'easter drove rain under the flashing.
A stained, sagging, or dropped plaster ceiling opened, the cavity above it dried, and the source found before anyone patches it.