A ferocious northeast storm lashed the Vineyard with heavy rains and hurricane-force winds Friday, flooding roads, battering coastlines and cancelling ferries for the day.

Rain and wind lashed the Vineyard for a second straight day Thursday as tropical storm Jose churned seas. Ferries are cancelled.

Roads flooded and lightning struck in more than one place when a line of severe squalls raced through the Vineyard Wednesday morning.

Batteries, bread, shovels and gas were in hot demand Monday as Islanders prepared for the winter storm expected to hit the Island Monday evening. "It's like a summer day," said Shirley's Hardware employee Debbie Healy.

The Vineyard spent Wednesday digging out from the winter gale that battered the Island all day Tuesday. Schools remained closed on Thursday as highway workers and private contractors planned to spend another day clearing snow from roadways.

Oct. 29 marks the one-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. Had she headed 200 miles farther north of her Atlantic City-area landfall and then taken a left, we’d still be dealing with the havoc left in her wake.

Salvage plans are under way for an abandoned 36-and-a-half-foot sailboat that washed up at Norton Point beach on Friday night.

No one was aboard the Running Free, which was abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle on Mother’s Day.

A steep rate hike is in the offing for the only home insurance available to many Vineyard residents.

The FAIR Plan has proposed a rate increase of nearly 10 per cent for the Cape and Islands.

According to information released by the Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association, also known as the FAIR Plan, owner-occupied home insurance rates would increase 9.9 per cent, the maximum increase allowed, on the Cape and Islands. The proposed average increase in the state is seven per cent.

The succession of storms that have pounded the Island this winter have taken their toll in Oak Bluffs, where the town says massive repairs are needed to stabilize the damaged East Chop area.

Officials said the already-weakened East Chop Drive, bluff and beach have sustained significant damage in the past few months, beginning with Hurricane Sandy in October and continuing through a nearly-three-day storm last week.

As the northeast continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy’s historic destruction two weeks ago, federal and state disaster relief officials visited the Vineyard on Thursday to assess damages and help begin the reimbursement process for damages to town property sustained during the storm.

Initial estimates to town and county owned coastlines and property Island-wide swelled to over $14.2 million.