It moved in quickly, and was fast moving as battered many communities, but it is taking much longer to get over.

Many still don’t have power and there’s storm and flood damage to clean up. Some popular beaches were hit the hardest, including Indian Beach in North Sydney.

Nearly $700,000 in repairs to enhance the beach was nearly all wiped away after Thursday's storm surge hammered the coast.

The beach almost fully submerged with water and Friday the damage was evident.

“It's devastating,” said Allan Clarke, the Parks and Grounds manager for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. “There's a huge mess there. It's sad because there was so much money, time and effort went into that project. Over a half a million dollars and half of that is gone right now.”

The waves were still a sight to see on Friday.

In Port Morien there wasn't much left to a fillet storage facility. Rocks and part of the seawall were scattered along the waterfront.

“The secondary seawall all collapsed,” said resident Keith Green.“You can see those big blocks all rolled over. This fish plant here, the ice stack was a couple stories high. It's not there anymore. It got blown down on the wharf.”

A day later and the storm surge was still pretty incredible at Dominion Beach and that created a steady stream of onlookers that just can't get enough of Mother Nature's power.

Some regulars at the beach say the wind is the worst they’ve ever seen.

While it's a sight to see, the storm created on a mess on this popular beach.

Parts of the boardwalk were either destroyed or covered with debris.

It was a sad day for Doug Sheppard, who, like so many others is a daily visitor here. 

“I went to the end of where the old boardwalk used to be and it's pretty well all sand and rocks now,” Sheppard said. “It's all pretty well buried.”

The municipality says it's still too early to put a dollar figure on the damage, but says it's been scattered across the island.

“Just a lot of wash outs in certain areas,” Clarke said. “A couple trails we had washed out, brooks and streams that we can fix. All in all, Indian beach was probably the worst one.”

It’s a November storm that has left its mark on Cape Breton Island.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.