Teens rescued from car roof in Wellfleet

By Stewart Bishop, Globe Correspondent

A fast-rising tide trapped two teenagers on the roof of their car Monday night in Wellfleet, requiring a rescue by the local fire department.

The teens had been driving on a causeway between the mainland and Lieutenant Island when the car died. The causeway is typically dry, but the combination of high tides and an offshore gale flooded the roadway and left the teens about 150 yards from the island, according to Chief Dan Silverman of the Wellfleet Fire Department.

"My guess is their car stalled," Silverman said today. "The tide comes up pretty quickly, so by the time we got to them, they were sitting on the roof of their car."

The teen were cold and wet but did not require hospitalization. "We threw them in the back of the ambulance and warmed them up for a little while," Silverman said.

The rescue came as unusually high tides hit the Bay State. Minor coastal flooding was reported in Nantasket, Scituate, and Winthrop. A high surf advisory remains in effect for much of the Massachusetts coastline, although the coastal conditions tonight and Wednesday should be less severe.

"We're expecting another high tide around midnight tonight," said Hayden Frank, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton. "But the winds are dissipating, and should be below 25 knots by this evening."

In Newbury, a sandbag barrier near the end of Plum Island Boulevard seemed to be holding back floodwaters, town officials said. In late 2008, a home on Northern Avenue fell into the sea because of extreme beach erosion.

"We've had some high tides over the last few days," said Newbury Town Administrator Charles Kostro. "But the sandbags have held up well. We'll have the engineer who designed the barrier take another look in a few days, but so far we're looking pretty good."