BEVERLY – As schools remain closed in three Massachusetts communities due to a teachers strike, some parents are struggling to find child care for their children.

“We’re all overwhelmed”

“We’re all overwhelmed,” said Sarah Roy, a mother of two at Ayers Ryal Side Elementary School in Beverly. 

Since last Friday, she’s been juggling her full-time job while also caring for her 6-year-old son Owen and her 11-year-old daughter Annabelle. 

“It’s hard to focus on one or the other when you’re trying to do both at once,” she said. 

Last Thursday, educators in Beverly announced their decision to go on strike, cancelling school Friday and now Wednesday as well. Teachers in Gloucester and Marblehead are also on strike in hopes of getting a new contract with better pay and other benefits. 

“This is a good example to my kids that you should always stand up for what you believe in,” said Roy. She told WBZ-TV she fully supports Beverly educators going on strike, despite the fact that it is illegal in Massachusetts. “The fact that they are getting paid so low is so upsetting. It feels like a reflection of our values and that’s not what I signed up for. Those aren’t my values,” she said. 

Hundreds on child care

In the past week Roy said she has spent $600 for child care. “That was an unexpected expense, that a lot of people don’t have because they’re living paycheck to paycheck,” she said.  The mother of two has hired a babysitter, including local middle schoolers, to watch her children while she works. She says she’s also benefitted from free childcare at the Ryal Side Civic Association Center. 

“We have 25 kids coming in the morning, 25 kids coming in the afternoon,” said Meredith Quinn, Ayers PTO President. She organized the volunteer run child care sessions at the community center so that working parents like herself and Roy can drop their kids off for games and movies. 

“We’re definitely not teaching or learning, but we’re trying to keep the skills sharp while they’re out of school.”

It is still unclear when school will resume for Beverly students. The Beverly Teacher Association and the School Committee are still negotiating a contract. Until they reach a fair agreement, Roy says this is, “just another reminder that we can do hard things, and we make it work.”

MARSHFIELD – Fire crews in Massachusetts are not just dealing with brush fires in these dry and windy conditions, but two house fires had them scrambling to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring homes. 

Marshfield fire

“The whole sky was covered with black smoke, didn’t know what was happening,” said George Haldoupis, a neighbor who saw the flames quickly spread at a home on Sheridan Drive in Marshfield. “I came out and we saw that house was totally engulfed in flames, it didn’t take long.”

Firefighters from several communities continually poured water on the home and surrounding houses in a neighborhood filled with trees and dried leaves.

“[The wind] was just like a blow torch, it just took off in one direction to the other,” said Marshfield Acting Fire Chief Mike Laselva. “As soon as it caught whatever fire was going, it quickly accelerated it.”

Mara Cronin’s home next door had enough damage to the roof to displace her for now. Fire crews were also able to rescue her three cats hiding under a bed. “Thank god nobody’s hurt, everyone’s OK. We just rescued our three cats so everyone’s fine and we’ll rebuild and we’ll be back,” said Cronin.

Dorchester fire

With only charred remains of the Marshfield home, it was a similar scene on Weyanoke Street in Dorchester as flames quickly engulfed an old Victorian.

“It was quite a bit of smoke in the area. But we couldn’t really figure out where it was. And then we saw the roof literally catch on fire and it looked like a giant candlestick,” said neighbor Dan DeChristoforo.

Six residents were displaced in two units, along with pets. The issue here not just wind but also access. Boston Deputy Fire Chief Scott Malone said rear exits were not only blocked but nailed shut. Dominic Lopez was left screaming from a second floor window to be rescued.

“Within a minute or something like that and then I opened up the window and they were pretty much there,” said Lopez.

“You push security versus safety sometimes,” said Malone. “In this particular case it almost cost someone a life. But thank god we got here in time and that person is saved.”

There were no serious injuries in both fires, but one Boston firefighter had to be treated for neck burns.  

The Boston Research Advisory Group report found that deadly hot marine heat waves — once extremely rare — could become commonplace. Scientists warn that those and other impacts are only going to get worse if the climate continues to warm with dire and possibly irreversible impacts on the ocean.

If the planet does not stop emitting planet-warming greenhouse gasses, marine heat waves could occur off the coast of Massachusetts once every decade if the planet reaches 2 degrees Celsius of warming and perhaps every other year with 3 degrees of warming. The vast majority of excess heat generated by anthropogenic warming is absorbed by the planet’s oceans.

“The possible impacts described in this report are not pleasant,” said Paul Kirshen, a professor of climate adaptation at the University of Massachusetts Boston and an author of the report. “We need to get to net zero emissions and below as soon as possible.”

Unlike on land, where humans can build a seawall to protect from coastal flooding, for example, there is very little that can be done to help ecosystems adapt to warmer water and higher acidity, experts said. The trends noted in the report will be “very difficult” to respond to, Kirshen said.

The report was created to answer questions posed by leaders of coastal Massachusetts towns and cities about what communities could expect over the next few decades as the climate continues to warm. Many of those towns have local economies that are at least in part dependent on commercial fishing, an industry that is likely to be dramatically changed by a warmer and more acidic Massachusetts Bay.

Native fish populations will likely continue their decline off of Massachusetts’ coast, while species from further south will move in, scientists found. The bay will continue to get acidic and inhospitable for the many fish, plants, and shellfish that live there now.

Oceans absorb about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that’s released into the atmosphere. When absorbed, carbon dioxide makes sea water more acidic through chemical reactions, putting the entire food web in the marine ecosystem at risk, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

One example: Higher acidity causes shells to deteriorate, which kills shellfish. That will be an early marker of a shift in fishing ecology in Massachusetts Bay, the Boston-area researchers warned.

“Shell fisheries should be monitored … for warning signs,” the report said. As acidity increases, there are fewer carbonate ions in the water, an essential ingredient to build shells.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Cod’s numbers have already declined and the American lobster population is moving north. Scientists further expect populations of winter flounder, silver hake, and Atlantic herring to decline as well.

As others move out, species more suited to warmer temperatures are expected to move in, such as summer flounder, black sea bass, blue crab, and butterfish among them.

Jason Krumholz, an oceanographer and associate professor at the University of Connecticut, said that when he started graduate school in 2005, only very rarely did he catch blue crabs in nets. Now, more than half the crabs he catches are blue crabs, he said.

“I’m not that old yet, and this is a change that I’ve seen just in my career,” said Krumholz, one of the authors of the report. “It’s pretty fast.”

The fishing industry could likely adapt to this change by convincing buyers to push different offerings on the menu, Krumholz said. “We may have a lot more flags outside of restaurants with blue crabs on them instead of lobsters in 20 years.”

Scientists have also observed that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is slowing down. It’s one of the planet’s most prominent and powerful ocean currents and helps to moderate the climate at sea and on land near the shore.

That’s a wild card for ocean temperatures, said Bruce Anderson, an oceanographer and professor at Boston University and one of the lead authors of the report. The phenomenon could weaken and broaden the Gulf Stream, which brings warm tropical waters to the region.

“It’s really unclear what the Gulf Stream is going to do and how that change is going to affect things like the fisheries or even our climate here in Massachusetts,” Anderson said.

If the Gulf Stream slowdown continues, the water offshore of Massachusetts could see “substantial” warming as subtropical waters diffuse northward into the region, scientists found, further compounding the problems.

Another area of uncertainty: How President-elect Donald Trump’s administration could impact the trajectory of offshore ecosystems.

Environmental advocates are worried that the incoming Trump administration will try to slash budgets for federal environmental agencies, which could both slow the energy transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and affect efforts to clean up marine pollution.

Many federal grants finance beach cleanups, water quality testing, and other programs to manage the marine environment, said Jeff Watters, vice president of external affairs of the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit organization.

“I think they’re more at risk now than they were under the first [Trump] administration,” Watters said, because Congress was able to block some of those defunding efforts last time. “Pollution could absolutely go up; that’s a real possibility.”

Those fears come as marshes and coastal ecosystems are already threatened by plastic and pharmaceutical pollution, and runoff pollution is expected to increase due to stronger storms and an increase in coastal populations, according to the new report.

The pollution in Massachusetts Bay is affected by the behavior of people: What they buy, where they fish, how they recreate, and where they live, said Anderson of Boston University.

Yet, perhaps in that relationship lies a glimmer of hope: Towns, cities, and individuals can prevent further pollutants from entering the ecosystem. “This is a very sensitive environment to everyday decisions,” Anderson said.

Erin Douglas can be reached at erin.douglas@globe.com. Follow her @erinmdouglas23.