Skylah and Raquel are the eldest of four very impressive, young environmental scientists. The four sisters each follow their own paths within the discipline and are either graduates or current students of New Bedford High School. Skylah and Raquel shared with the Envision Resilience team their reflections on growing up in the famous port city and their goals for the future.

Rodney Avila has been a fisherman out of New Bedford, Massachusetts for five decades. After making his livelihood at sea, Rodney has had a hard time sticking to retired life and now serves as a liaison between families in the fishing industry for Ørsted and New Bedford’s burgeoning offshore wind industry.

One of the pillars of downtown Nantucket, Young’s Bicycle Shop has seen its fair share of flooding over the past 30 years. From the No Name Storm of 1991 to Winter Storm Grayson in 2018, Harvey shares his stories of how rising sea levels have affected this intergenerational family business and his plans for adapting to the future.

Karl and Susan Ottison are fourth-generation owners of their Nantucket Orange Street property. For as long as they remember, from their land that sits right up against the The Creeks Preserve, they’ve watched storms roll in and out and the tides slowly rise.

Bob Rulli has been a critical partner, advisor and ally throughout the duration of the 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge. Both a planner and a leader on the front lines of climate change, Bob initiated the Market to Metacom Climate Resilience and Economic Development Plan. I recently sat down with Bob to talk about the impact that working with design students, as well as students across disciplines, can have on a community facing challenging decisions around issues related to climate change

Jolie Jaycobs spent her youngest years jumping in and out of playful waves on Nantucket Island, one of the most eastern towns in the United States, 30 miles from Massachusetts’ mainland coast. In this blog, she writes about the impact that had on her understanding of resilience.

A fifth-generation Nantucketer, Ginger Andrews is a well-known name around the island when it comes to preservation and climate efforts. She believes in looking at our island’s foundations before we figure out what steps need to be taken next; digging up and looking at Nantucket’s roots.

Envision advisor Dr. Sarah Treanor Bois explores the impact of our changing climate on Nantucket’s plant and animal life through a variety of projects in phenology, the study of nature’s cyclic and seasonal ongoings—particularly in relation to climate change.

Local Nantucketer Alfred Sanford spent 40 years working with the Old North Wharf in downtown Nantucket, as an owner and manager, proposing a restoration for it and helping in the rebuilding after the “No Name” storm in 1991. Publicity around the Wilkes Square project in the early 2000s showed the vulnerability of Nantucket Harbor and Town to contemporary ideas and styles, which inspired Alfred to envision a new harbor idea to demonstrate that we can hold on to what makes Nantucket special, while still adapting for the future.

While a majority of Nantucket gardens are based on homeowner’s aesthetic preferences and not always native, native plants are well adapted to local environmental conditions and they serve as a scaffolding from which entire ecosystems are built. And there are two female gardeners leading the movement. Leigh Marr, operator of Artemisia Gardening and Luci Imbach, Owner and operator of Island Harvest Vegetable Gardens spoke with Morgan about Nantucket landscape industry’s “ecological and edible renaissance.”

In our most recent Stories From Ashore submission, Julie Kever—a 12th-generation Nantucketer—reflects on growing up as a year-rounder in the Brant Point neighborhood. Writing about her “flood adventures,” Julie recalls being picked up during at least two big winter storms by the Coast Guard’s amphibious ‘Duck’ that was there to collect winter families from the flooded streets of Brant Point. Read her thoughts about experiencing first-hand what it means to live in a low-lying flood zone year-round, and what it means when you choose to live in a place that faces those consequences.

For more than 90 years, Skip Willauer’s family dealt with the force of nature and impact of storms on their Dionis beach house, Westcliff. Read Skip’s story in the first of our Stories from Ashore series. In this series, we will share stories of local Nantucketers and their experience with climate change.