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A bird's-eye view of the aftermath

E-mail|Link|Comments () March 16, 2010 03:16 PM

By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff

For the most part, it looked like the Boston area on a typical sunny day, but with more marshland than you'd expect.

A helicopter tour by a Boston Globe reporter and photographer over storm-drenched eastern Massachusetts today found the area bathed in sunlight, but telltale signs along rivers and streams of the recent deluge.

On Alrick Road in Quincy, two dozen homes were surrounded by water, which climbed halfway up white picket fences, and some people were busy paddling a rubber raft. A nearby ballfield was covered by water and the bright colors of an oil slick.

But at the same time, elementary school children played four-square as if it were a normal day in a playground a short distance away.

At Norwood Memorial Airport, which has been flooded, the sun blazed off the water covering some of the runways. A snowplow and a car drove through the puddles with water up to their hubcaps.

In Waltham, near the Charles River dam, people were feeding ducks in the flood waters.

In the Billerica and Chelmsford area, homes along the edge of a river were surrounded by water. Trees and front yard flagpoles protruded from pools.

On Southern Avenue on Plum Island, it appeared the deck of one home had been torn away. Sizeable timbers were washed up on the beach side of the home.