JAMESTOWN, R.I. — As in so many of Rhode Island’s coastal communities, last year’s winter storms hit Conanicut Island hard.

A trio of nor’easters prompted town officials to close two main thoroughfares: North Road around Marsh Meadows and Beavertail Road along Mackerel Cove. Both roads are essential for travel on the small island, and they are both becoming more prone to flooding thanks to sea level rise and climate change.

As one of the state’s whole-island communities, Jamestown is especially vulnerable. If thoroughfares such as North Road, or the Jamestown or Newport bridges, are permanently closed or washed out, residents have few alternatives to get on or off the Narragansett Bay island.

But residents and town officials aren’t willing to let the island wash away; they’ve been organizing. Led by the nonprofit Protect Conanicut Coastline (PCC), advocates are tracking down climate solutions that will help residents save their town from sinking into the sea.

“When there’s flooding on the island in Jamestown, the island is divided into three separate parts,” Kim Korioth, chief resilience officer for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, said at a recent PCC meeting on the island. “That’s scary.”

With storms becoming supercharged by climate change, it’s a matter of when, not if, Jamestown is hit by a big one. The state’s storm inundation data planner, STORMTOOLS, shows that a 100-year storm would result in 16 feet of flooding in many of the town’s coastal areas and coves. That flooding wouldn’t just impact North and Beavertail roads; it would also cover Route 138, the state road that connects Jamestown via the Newport Pell and Jamestown Verrazano bridges.

In January, following the storms, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation presented town officials with five options for buffeting North and Beavertail roads against climate change. The most expensive option would build a new bridge along North Road, 12 feet above sea level, at the price tag of $94.3 million, according to reporting by The Jamestown Press.

Other options presented by RIDOT at the time included abandoning the road, enlarging the hydraulic openings of the current bridge, or raising the road’s current elevation.

Beavertail Road at Mackerel Cove has received a lot of attention. Rep. Alex Finkelman, D-Jamestown, announced on Nov. 12 that the road had been added to the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), which allows any projects for the road to access federal dollars, after much lobbying by himself and town officials.

“A couple of storms last year really decimated the area,” said Ray DeFalco, the town’s recreation department chief. “I couldn’t believe the pictures I was seeing from Beavertail Road that people were sending me.”

For residents, it comes down to either protecting the road or beach access along Mackerel Cove. As Beavertail Road passes Mackerel Cove, there is a thin sliver of beach between the road and the cove, which is at great risk for coastal erosion. In a somewhat ironic twist for a coastal community, the dunes are artificial; they were constructed by the town in 1992. In December 2022, the road flooded over during a winter storm, with much of the sand dunes eroding into the cove over the past two years.

To strengthen the beach, the town would have to raise the height of the dunes, which currently measure just over 7 feet. Town officials would have to add enough sand, an expensive prospect on its own, to raise the dunes’ height to over 10 and a half feet in order for the area to be able to weather a 20- or 50-year storm event.

In the meantime, the town, as a short-term solution, has started to grow its own stock of beachgrass to plant and reinforce the dunes. Beachgrass and other vegetation that goes on the state’s beaches is a key component to preventing coastal erosion.

Ann Kuhn Hines, chair of the Jamestown Conservation Commission, said the commission was planting four species of grass at the Jamestown Community Farm. The project started shortly after the Mackerel Cove dunes were damaged in winter 2022 storms, with the conservation commission anticipating a need and steady source of dune vegetation.

“There’s three native species of dune grass, and one non-native,” Hines said. “But it is holding the dunes together.”