Fiona reshaped P.E.I.'s coastlines, stoking fears for the Island's future

A picture of how much post-tropical storm Fiona has reshaped Prince Edward Island is beginning to emerge — and in some cases, whole coastlines made of sand and stone have been erased.

The storm hit P.E.I. in the early morning hours of Sept. 24, leaving widespread destruction.

Six days after Fiona, the cleanup is far from over, with the majority of the Island still without power, and downed trees and power lines still blocking driveways and roads.

As Islanders begin the long road to recovery, many are wondering where to rebuild and how far from the shore is safe enough.

"I never seen anything like this before," said Oyster Bed Bridge resident Wayne McCaron, whose home now sits closer to the water after Fiona took a six-metre chunk out of the cliffside.

McCaron's home is still a few hundred metres back from the water, but a nearby small cottage now sits right at the edge.

"Come this winter, if we get a couple of storm surges … I feel sorry for this fella if he doesn't soon get out," McCaron said.

"Whatever he's going to save there, it's pretty well stone walls is all that's going to save him now. Expensive!"

McCaron's neighbour, Jonathan Davidson, says the surge was so high it threw heavy iron oyster cages right into the treetops.

"And there used to be — like, there were staircases going down. Some of the properties had staircases and they're just washed away," he said.

"You can see how sharp of an incline it is now. It's just — it's a cliff," Davidson said. "There was a fairly decent grade that you could walk down at one point, but now it's just straight down."

Further along P.E.I.'s North Shore, the entrance to Brackley Beach in P.E.I. National Park was being guarded by Parks Canada staff on Wednesday. Fiona caused the worst damage the park's iconic sand dunes have seen in a century, leaving the dunes dangerously unstable.

"What we saw was up to 10 metres of the dune completely eroded away," said Chris Housser, a professor at the school of the environment at the University of Windsor who specializes in coastal science.

"It's almost like somebody cut the dune completely in half — about 40 percent of the volume of sand in the dune has been lost to the near shore. It will eventually come back, but it's going to take a lot of time — years to potentially even a decade."