A few years ago, The Andrea, a seasonal seafood restaurant on the west end of Misquamicut Beach in Westerly, posted a black-and-white photo on Facebook showing a line of cars buried in the sand.
About 20 of the cars had broken windows and were built in the 1940s or 1950s.
“Tell me what you know about the cars. Free drink to anyone who comes close to the truth behind the cars. . . . Good luck!” Post said.
The post generated over 300 likes. Some of them were submitted by people for fun.
“All these cars were impounded for parking illegally in front of Ocean House,” joked one person.
“People trying to avoid a 20.00 parking fee at a state beach?” asked another.
“The used car dealer who went down to speak,” joked a third.
Some, however, were close to the mark.
“There was a flood, I think back in 54, cars buried,” went one guess. “The cars were covered in sand as a blockade/barrier there in front of the Andrea Hotel. I believe that after Hurricane Sandy, you will see some cars again.”
Rebecca Colucci, whose family owns Andrea’s, remembers the story of the buried cars.
“The year was 1954,” she told the Providence Journal. “Hurricane Carol came first and then we got hit with Hurricane Edna. This may be the only time in history that New England has been hit with two Category 3 hurricanes in one year.”
Many vehicles have been flooded by the storm. Rebecca’s grandfather, Ralph Colucci, offered to pick them up and drive them out.
“His idea was to bury them as deep as possible and create a barrier against coastal storm surges. He lined up the cars, broke the windows and put heavy chains around the cars connecting them,” Colucci said.
Ralph Colucci apparently buried the cars twice, once in 1954 and again in 1960, according to Nina Wright, who oversees special collections and reference at the Westerly Library.
A news clip from 1967 seems to confirm this account.
“For many years Ralph Colucci, owner of a beach-front hotel in Misquamicut Beach, had problems with beach erosion that caused his hotel to be damaged by the sea. [wash] On the sandbank in front of his hotel, the clip reads. Until now, cars have prevented sandbanks from being washed away.
Misquamicut Beach in the summer of 2023. Beneath the sand in front of Andrea’s restaurant, a line of junked cars has been buried since the 1950s to reduce erosion from coastal storms.
Since then, the storm has found pieces of the car. Thomas Guluccio, president of the Westerly Historical Society, said locals used to gauge the severity of storms by exhuming Colucci’s buried cars.
“I was told as a kid, ‘Oh boy, last night’s storm was so bad you could see the cars at the end of here,'” Guluccio said.
Other locals, in comments on Facebook, recalled seeing children playing in the sand and seeing vehicles left behind by the storm.
Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was the largest hurricane to hit Misquamicut Beach. This caused serious damage to the Andrea, which by then was a hotel. The Colucci family demolished the building and replaced it with a restaurant, preserving the hotel’s old historic fireplace.
Rebecca Colucci remembers finding car parts under a patio area near the main building after Hurricane Sandy.
“We always remove them and dispose of them properly, but there may be more,” she said.
He’s not sure who got a free drink for guessing the Cars story correctly.
This article originally appeared in the Providence Journal: Cars buried to reduce erosion along Mishwamicut Beach.
